Beermen rebound vs Hotshots

MANILA, Philippines - San Miguel Beer, a team noted for its firepower, stood its ground in a defensive battle with Star last night, foiling the Hotshots’ make-or-break bid at the buzzer to escape with a 77-76 nail-biter of a win and force a 1-1 deadlock in their PBA Commissioner’s Cup best-of-five semifinal faceoff at the MOA Arena.

Arwind Santos nailed his lone field-goal basket – a trey – to shatter a 74-all count in the last 3:40 of play then the Beermen fought the Hotshots stop-for-stop and hustle-for-hustle to squeeze through with the series-tying victory.

They completed their escape act with a defensive gem on Paul Lee with Santos reaching out to force the driving Hotshot throw an off-balanced shot that went way off the mark and the Beermen celebrated the victory that reduced their series into a best-of-three affair.

They dispute the pivotal 2-1 lead at 7 p.m. tomorrow over at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

Meanwhile, Barangay Ginebra coach Tim Cone is expected to make adjustments as the Gin Kings go up against the TNT KaTropa Texters in Game Two of their side of the semis tonight, also at the MOA Arena.

Tip-off is at 7 p.m. with the Texters looking for a follow-up to their 100-94 win in Game One Sunday.

 “We’ll dig deeper,” said TNT coach Nash Racela. “We’ll look for tapes from 10 years ago and study the adjustments that he makes.”

SMB coach Leo Austria came up with key adjustments as they bounced back from a 105-109 loss Saturday and stopped the Hotshots’ eight-game streak from the elimination round.

But it’s an ugly endgame that saw only one player in Mark Barroca score a basket in the last four minutes of the contest.

“Whatever it is, we’ll take it,” said Austria to stress the importance of foiling the Hotshots’ bid at taking a 2-0 lead.

Ricardo Ratliffe came through with another huge double-double game with 35 rebounds (second all-time most in PBA playoffs) and 28 points but the Star gunners were kept in check by the Beermen.

The Hotshots were held to six three-pointers, just half of their hits in their Game One victory.

Offensively, starters Charles Rhodes, Alex Cabagnot, June Mar Fajardo, Chris Ross and Marcio Lassiter combined for all but 10 of SMB’s production.

They all saw action for at least 32 minutes, and each one delivered at least 10 points.

Austria limited his rotation to nine men, tapping only four reserves in Santos, Ronald Tubid, Gabby Espinas and Brian Heruela.

With a focus on defense after yielding a number of buckets in the previous game, the Beermen made the Hotshots bleed for their points in the opening half.

They extended their defense on the Star shooters, holding them to 1-of-10 three-point shooting in the first 24 minutes of play.

Meanwhile, Lassiter, Cabagnot and Ross combined for six treys as the Beermen took the half at 44-30.

The Beermen opened an early double-digit spread before closing the first quarter at 25-16 on a buzzer-beating putback by Fajardo off Rafi Reavis.