Beermen nip Warriors, zero in on title

MANILA, Philippines - San Miguel Beer came up with a perfectly executed offensive in the last 6.8 seconds to scrape past a stubborn Indonesia side, 66-65, and move a win away from sweeping the 2013 Asean Basketball League crown at the packed Ynares Sports Arena in Pasig.

Benefiting from a “lucky” timeout called by the Warriors, the Beermen devised a devious plan to catch Indonesia’s defense off-guard and got rewarded with an unmolested game-winning bucket from Brian Williams to steal the win and go 2-0 in their best-of-five series.

The Beermen will seek to wrest the title from the Warriors with a vengeful sweep on Wednesday before an expected hostile crowd at Mahaka Square in Jakarta.

As planned, Williams extricated from his defender off a backscreen, rushed towards the basket, got the inbounds pass from Leo Avenido, and gamely knocked it down to give SMB a 66-65 cushion with 5.2 seconds left.

The Beermen then forced Stanley Pringle to miss the last play to complete the triumph, a follow-up to their 75-70 victory in Friday night’s opener.

“We’re fortunate that with 6.8 seconds left, we didn’t have a timeout anymore and all of a sudden, they called a timeout. Wow, this is a game we can’t forget,” coach Leo Austria said.

Instead of going to Asi Taulava or Banchero as in the preceding plays that produced nothing but poorly made shots, Austria made Williams their designated hitter in their last play.

“It’s really designed for him (Williams) because they (Indonesia) would try to stop Banchero or Asi at the post and we had a shooter, Val Acuña. I know they would go to Acuña and wouldn’t switch because Banchero was the one who was supposed to get the ball if Williams wasn’t free,” he said.

He lauded his wards, especially, inbounder Avenido, for sticking to the script.

“Leo made the right decision and made that pass to Brian. It was a well-executed play,” Austria said.

Williams led SMB’s scoring parade with 17 points to go with 16 rebounds and four blocks.

“That was the same play Indonesia has been playing, running against us all season. I think they did six times in this game. We finally did it to them and it worked to perfection,” said Williams.

Warriors coach Todd Purves said he sued for time to plot out their defense against Taulava at the post or Banchero at the wings.

“They (SMB) executed real well. We got caught on the backscreen. It was a great play for Leo Austria, I take my hat’s off to the Beermen. But I’m extremely proud of our effort today; we got the opportunity to win in hostile crowd against a great team and we were just one play short,” he said.

Banchero added 12 points and five assists while Avenido had eight markers and four feeds and Taulava chipped in eight points and six rebounds for SMB, which enjoyed a 22-12 lead early in the second canto.

Pringle led the way for Indonesia with 21 points, nine rebounds and six assists as Chris Daniels (15-11) and Steven Thomas (13-13) had double-double outputs.