San Miguel Beermen’s June Mar Fajardo and Bennie Boatwright. –MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.net
The presence of Bennie Boatwright has allowed June Mar Fajardo to play a key secondary role in San Miguel Beer’s march to the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Commissioner’s Cup Finals.
“I do know what my role is inside our team,” Fajardo said in a brief chat with The Inquirer while entertaining autograph seekers throughout the Philippine Sportswriters Association Awards Night last Monday at Diamond Hotel.
Boatwright brought a unique dimension to an already-deep Beermen lineup, forming a frontline tandem with the seven-time Most Invaluable Player (MVP).
San Miguel finally learned its opponent for the title series in Magnolia, which took care of business on Wednesday by stopping Phoenix’s Cinderella run, 89-79, at Mall of Asia Arena.
Coach Chito Victolero and his defensive-minded Hotshots will try to unravel the issue of coming up with a approach to stop or a minimum of limit the dreaded Boatwright-Fajardo duo and the remainder of the Beermen within the series which opens on Friday at the identical Pasay City venue.
“‘Death Five’ nga hirap na kami, sa ‘Death 15’ pa? (We already had problems with the ‘Death Five,’ what more the ‘Death 15),” Victolero said, referring to San Miguel counterpart Jorge Gallent’s proclamation that his lineup is greater than just Boatwright, Fajardo or any player.
However it’s clear every thing starts with the 2 bigs.
Fajardo often camps out on the post while Boatwright, standing almost 6-foot-9, thrives on hitting on the surface shot or begins his attack from the highest of the important thing.
Coach Tim Cone and Barangay Ginebra’s fears were realized within the semifinals as Boatwright and Fajardo inflicted trouble on players like Christian Standhardinger and Tony Bishop to steer the Beermen to a sweep of their best-of-five series.They’re Magnolia’s problems now.
“We are going to try to search out ways to beat them. I imagine there’s all the time an answer to any problem and we are going to go to our strength which is defense,” Victolero said.
Fajardo averaged 15.3 points, 11.0 rebounds, 3.7 blocks, 1.3 assists and 1.0 steals and was named the ultimate Player of the Week for the conference by the PBA Press Corps.
“We got a extremely good import who can rating so much and we even have a whole lot of scorers on this team,” said Fajardo. “My role is to set the tone, and to create something once they put the ball in my hands.”Magnolia took control early after taking double-digit leads in the primary half of Game 4 of their semifinal encounter, however the Fuel Masters refused to roll over.
They made several runs within the second half, including midway within the fourth when Sean Manganti caught fire to spark a Phoenix rally.
