ABL: Beermen look unbeatable, notch 14th victory

The San Miguel Beermen continue to look unbeatable, notching their 14th straight win on Wednesday at the expense of the Sports Rev Thailand Slammers, via a score of 78-61, at the Ynares Sports Arena. The league-leading SMB squad improved to 17-3, while the Slammers sank to 7-13, falling into a tie with the JobStreet.com Singapore Slingers. [Related: Beerman take lucky 13th straight win, best Indonesia Warriors] The Slammers actually led early, forging a 17-9 score with two minutes left in the first quarter on a split at the line by Kannawat Lertiaokul, before settling for a 19-15 score after ten minutes. Froilan Baguion rebuilt the Slammers' advantage to nine, 26-17, on a pair of free throws at the 7:17 mark of the second, but San Miguel refused to enter the half trailing. A 14-2 blast armed them with a 31-28 advantage, right before the halftime break, thanks to clutch scores from Brian Williams and RJ Rizada. The big-small duo continued to flourish for SMB after the break, as they grew their lead to 14, 44-30, 6:50 remaining in the third. A pair of Baguion to Christien Charles connections made it a four-point game, 45-41, but Jeric Fortuna struck back off a turnover, 47-41. Charles drew a foul on Rizada, and split his free throws, but Sukhdave Ghogar was there to clean up the miss, which led to another Baguion feed to Charles for a deuce, slicing their deficit in half, 47-44. Luckily for SMB, Fortuna stepped up anew, scoring his side's last seven points, 54-45, a quarter left to play. The fourth quarter was a much more one-sided affair though. After Val Acuna made it a double-digit lead at the start of the final canto, San Miguel's advantage never dipped back below 11, and even reached as high as 19, on back-to-back Asi Taualva scores with 3:11 remaining, 74-55. Brian Williams top-scored for San Miguel with an impressive double-double, 16 points and 20 rebounds. Asi Taulava was also a force down low with 12 markers, while RJ Rizada scattered 11. Former UST Tiger Fortuna had nine points and four assists. Christien Charles led all scorers with 28 points, in addition to 11 rebounds and seven blocks, playing all but one minute. He was the only Slammer in double-digit scoring. Kannut Samerjai managed six points, as did Froilan Baguion, though the latter ran the show to the tune of nine assists and six steals. The Beermen shot 43 percent form the field, while holding their foes to a 38 percent clip, including a 1-of-14 outing from beyond the arc. San Miguel also dominated the glass, 46-33, and had more assists, 23-17. - AMD, GMA News