LIU Chuanxing came up with his biggest performance in the PBA Commissioner’s Cup on the night that he was supposed to face off with June Mar Fajardo.
The 7-foot-5 Chinese center had 12 points and 10 rebounds as Bay Area scored a 113-87 victory over San Miguel, with Fajardo sidelined due to a throat injury.
The game was dubbed as Fajardo’s biggest test, but the showdown will have to wait until the playoffs, or maybe another tournament.
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“That hurt them for sure,” said Bay Area coach Brian Goorjian.
“He is maybe the best player in the competition. And they play off him when they won the championship. But again, our team has been affected immensely from what we brought over here. You just have to move forward with what you have.”
Liu Chuanxing and the Dragons improve to 5-1.
Goorjian, however, said San Miguel still had enough players to be capable of winning against them.
“And one thing about San Miguel, and that’s why they won the championship, they’ve got tremendous depth, they’ve got back-up bigs, they are deep in the guard spots. They definitely missed him but they have enough there for us to feel good about beating that team with that quality,” said Goorjian.
Fajardo will be out up to four weeks after undergoing surgery to repair a misaligned cartilage sustained from an inadvertent elbow by Rain or Shine import Steve Taylor.
“Na-feel namin ‘yung impact ng pagkawala niya,” said San Miguel coach Leo Austria. “’Yung tandem ng import at ni June Mar, hindi nakita dahil complementary ‘yung import namin kay June Mar. Si June Mar is at the post, they will double, there’s no big man who will double on him if Diamond can shoot from the perimeter. But without our post play, puwedeng bantayan ‘yung import namin. I think dun kami nagkaroon ng problem,” Austria said.
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