BOCAUE, Bulacan – June Mar Fajardo was a silver lining to Gilas Pilipinas’ defeat against Dominican Republic on Friday in the 2023 Fiba Basketball World Cup.

The six-time PBA MVP was perfect from the field, making all of his five field goal attempts on his way to a 16-point night in Gilas’ 87-81 defeat against Dominicana in front of 38,115 fans at the Philippine Arena.

The San Miguel Beer center also grabbed seven rebounds against a Dominican Republic frontline led by NBA All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns.

“Very efficient player,” said Gilas coach Chot Reyes in praising Fajardo. “28 minutes, 16 points, didn’t miss a shot.”

Reyes admitted Fajardo was playing so good on Friday night that the plan was to go to him as the team’s primary offensive weapon after Jordan Clarkson fouled out with three minutes to play in the contest.

Unfortunately, Towns did an excellent job of guarding Fajardo in the final minutes.

Photo by: Jerome Ascano

“If there was something that I was disappointed about towards the end, we wanted to go to him a lot more. Unfortunately, he was guarded by a 7-footer by the name of Karl-Anthony Towns as well. And I thought KAT did a good job of denying him, forcing him to step outside and not giving him good low post positions.”

“Credit to them. We wanted to get him the ball a lot more but they defended him. That’s a mark of a great team and that’s an All-Star. There’s a reason why Karl-Anthony Towns is an NBA All-Star. But still, we can’t complain about the effort of the game of June Mar and AJ Edu just defending and trying to stop KAT as much as we can,” said Reyes.

Fajardo played down his performance, saying he was only doing his role.

“Sayang bawi na lang next game. Sayang. Kaya natin manalo. Kailangan ko lang kung ano ang puwede kong maitulong sa team, gagawin ko. Team effort ’yun,” said Fajardo.