SAN Miguel dealt Magnolia another stinging loss and gave its PBA Commissioner's Cup playoff hopes a little push on Sunday night at the Ynares Center in Antipolo.
Marcio Lassiter and CJ Perez rallied the Beermen from a five-point deficit in the final minutes and frustrated the Hotshots, 85-78.
The win put the reigning champions back at the .500 mark with an even 4-4 record as they snapped out of a two-game slide.
READ: Two Lassiter treys for SMB slam door on hard-fighting Magnolia
The loss was a costly one for Magnolia, which now has lost two of its last three games to slide to 11th place with a 3-6 slate.
The other game saw Barangay Ginebra scoring an 86-73 blowout against Blackwater in Jamie Malonzo's comeback game.
The Kings are now 6-3 in the standings for a three-way tie with Converge and Eastern, while the Bossing fell to 1-7 overall and on the brink of elimination.
Here are the takeaways in the Antipolo doubleheader where all three SMC teams saw action.
1. MAGNOLIA ENDGAME COLLAPSE REARS ITS UGLY HEAD AGAIN - it happened before and it happened again for the Hotshots, who again failed to close out a game and paid dearly for it. San Miguel is the latest team to rally past Magnolia and pull off a win. That had been the same case with Converge, Rain or Shine, and Barangay Ginebra, in games the Hotshots should've won. Now Magnolia has to sweep its last three remaining assignments and hope teams in the middle of the pack decline for the franchise to avoid what would be a disastrous campaign. Significantly, Magnolia’s three victories this conference came at the expense of teams that are at the bottom of the standings like the Hotshots, namely, Terrafirma, Blackwater, and NLEX.
2. LASSITER LIVES UP TO TITLE AS PBA THREE-POINT KING – the veteran San Miguel gunner won’t be the league’s No. 1 three-point player for nothing. With the Beermen staring at another defeat, the 37-year-old Fil-Am answered the call by draining back-to-back baskets from beyond the arc inside the final two minutes to put San Miguel on top for good. Until coming up clutch in the stretch, Lassiter only had two points on 0-of-3 shooting from three-point range and 1-of-8 overall from the field. But he delivered big-time for the Beermen when needed most.
3.MALONZO STILL HAS A LONG WAY TO GO – the timing and rhythm are obviously not yet there, but the leap and bounce haven’t left for the Ginebra forward. Eight points in 10 minutes of play of a blowout win perhaps was the perfect opportunity to break Malonzo back into the Kings’ scheme of things and get him ready for what is a grueling schedule for the Kings heading into the playoffs that will have them taking on the likes of reigning Governors’ Cup champion TNT, No. 2 team Rain or Shine, and defending Philippine Cup champion Meralco.
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