San Miguel Beer played as if it was not coming off a long break to maintain its stranglehold of the solo lead in the Philippine Basketball Association Philippine Cup.
CJ Perez finally snapped out of a scoring funk, fueling the unbeaten defending champions’ third quarter surge that created the separation to beat Phoenix, 116-102, for their third straight win on Easter Sunday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
The Commissioner’s Cup Finals Most Valuable Player, along with June Mar Fajardo, who made his first start in the conference, combined for 14 points in the third canto and had plenty of help from the rest of the crew to build enough cushion that kept the Fuel Masters at bay.
Perez capped his return to action following the All-Star and Lenten break with a personal season-high 32 points, four rebounds and five assists to pace the Beermen.
San Miguel shared the ball well dishing out 29 assists overall with Marcio Lassiter accounting for eight.
“I told the guys to share the ball. If you share the ball, a lot of good things happen and that’s what we did today. We just played as a team and everybody contributed today especially CJ with his 32 points,” Beermen coach Jorge Gallent said.
Perez shot 13-of-20 from the field including 4-of-8 from the outside for his best output in the conference after averaging a meager 7.0 points, 3.0 rebounds and 1.0 assists in his first two games.
“I’m just trying to be consistent. I don’t want to waste the trust given to me by our coaches. I guess I got some confidence as coach said coming from the All-Star Game. It’s a big thing for me,” Perez, who dropped 39 points highlighted by seven long bombs in the All-Star Game in Bacolod playing for Team Mark said.
“I’m also happy my (playing) minutes is back,” Perez, who saw action for 31 minutes, added.
Jericho Cruz had 17 points, Terrence Romeo made 16, Fajardo chipped in with 13 points and 12 boards while Don Trollano joined the scoring fray with 10, including seven in San Miguel’s 37-point third quarter outing.
San Miguel opened its biggest lead at 73-56 courtesy of a completed three-point play by Cruz with 5:06 left in third quarter.
Phoenix rallied to close the gap at 67-75 after a Jason Perkins basket only for the Beermen to make it a double-digit lead heading into the payoff period.
The Fuel Masters kept the game reachable up until four minutes left only to falter in the closing stretch.
Phoenix absorbed its second defeat in a row to slide down to a 1-4 win-loss slate tied with Rain or Shine.
Jayjay Alejandro and Matthew Daves had 13 points each, Javee Mocon got 12 and seven rebounds while Perkins had a double-double of 11 and 11 boards.
Kent Salado and Ricci Rivero both had 10 for the Fuel Masters.
