Fajardo: We still have a chance

San Miguel Beer center June Mar Fajardo admitted that TNT Tropang 5G had a good game plan and execution to snatch the opener of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Season 50 Philippine Cup finals.

But the big man believes the Beermen have learned their lesson and won’t be making the same mistakes in the second match of the best-of-seven series today at the Ynares Center-Antipolo.

A sluggish first half saw San Miguel go down by as many as 19 points but it got within one in the last 21 seconds, only to fall short, 91-96, on Wednesday.

Fajardo, whose numbers dipped in the later part of the semifinals after a 20-20 average, regained his touch with 24 points and 17 rebounds.

However, it wasn’t enough to save the Beermen from losing the first game, a scenario that mirrored San Miguel’s situation in last year’s all-Filipino conference championship against the same squad.

“We dropped Game 1. This is a long series, but it won’t be an easy series for us,” the nine-time Most Valuable Player said.

“It’s a long series, and we still have a chance. We have a long way to go. Right now, we’ll try to bounce back and regroup.”

The Tropang 5G, who the Beermen beat in six games in the last Philippine Cup, took San Miguel out of its comfort zone. The much taller Beermen were outrebounded, 42-55, their bench outplayed, 27-48, and had little help from their well-defended wingers.  

San Miguel trailed the whole game.

Fajardo also had to deal with defensive pressure from Kelly Williams, Brandon Ganuelas-Rosser, Poy Erram and Henry Galinato.

“I think it (TNT defense) was effective because we lost. We also had a lot of misses. I had a lot of misses at point-blank range,” the 6-foot-10 behemoth said.

“That’s what I need to address. But we’ll bounce back. After all, it’s a long series. It’s just Game 1.”