MANILA – San Miguel Beermen rode on the near perfect performance of June Mar Fajardo to score a 114-98 victory over Magnolia Hotshots in Game 4 of the 2019 Honda PBA Philippine Cup best-of-seven finals last night at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Fajardo hardly miss on the floor as he drained 13 of his 14 field goals and five of his six free throws to finish with 31 points to go along with 14 rebounds for the defending champions Beermen.
Terrence Romeo contributed 18 markers, including three outside conversions, while Chris Ross, Christian Standhardinger and Alex Cabagnot added 15, 13 and 11 markers, respectively, for the Beermen.
The Hotshots jumped to an early 11-4 lead but the Beermen was quick to respond with baskets from Ross and Cabagnot to tie the score at 23-all before Magnolia regained a 27-25 edge on a free throw by Rome dela Rosa.
Both teams traded hits early in the second period before the Beermen surged to a 45-38 edge on inside hits by Fajardo and a triple by Arwind Santos. Magnolia cut it to 47-49 but a triple by Romeo and free throws by Standhardinger gave SMB a 54-47 edge.
SMB got consecutive hits from Fajardo at the onset of the third period to push the lead to 61-47. Magnolia rallied to within single digit several times but triples by Ross and Romeo increased SMB’s lead back to 85-69.
The Hotshots made its last push to come to as close as 80-87 in the fourth period but the Beermen had another rally behind Romeo and Standhardinger for its largest lead at 105-88.
Andy Mark Barroca and Jiovani Jalalon paced the Hotshots with 22 points each, while Ian Sangalang had double-double 19 points and 11 rebounds. Paul Lee struggled offensively with seven points on 3-of-9 shooting./PN
