PBA at 50: San Miguel Beermen “Death 5” Dynasty

The domination made by the San Miguel Beermen was truly spectacular during the 80s to 90s. But what cemented their glory was when they won a Grand Slam during 1989, winning 3 titles in a row.

Despite being labeled as the “winningest franchise in PBA history”, a lot of fans are amazed at what they’ve done during the 2010s.

1. Where It All Began, The End of “Petronovela”

Ever since winning the 2011 Governor’s Cup title and spoiling the potential Grandslam hopes of Talk N’ Text, the Petron Blaze Boosters have been in a constant loop of disappointing finishes throughout the following seasons.

Reaching the playoffs and finals is great; they even had an opportunity to stop another Grand Slam dream, but this time, they fell short against the San Mig Coffee Mixers in Game 7 of the 2013 Governor’s Cup.

The never-ending off-court drama and issues felt like a “Novela” for Petron. Problems of players with the coaching staff and even with one of their imports who was in a “choking” scene with the 2011 Finals MVP, Arwind Santos, it truly felt like the team needed a fresh new start, a rebranding if you may.

This is where their original franchise, San Miguel Beermen, made a comeback in the PBA during August 2014, just in time before the start of the Commissioner’s Cup.

2. A Surprising Promotion: Leo Austria becomes the Head Coach

The San Miguel Corporation has the means and can easily afford to get any Head Coach that they want. It can be former PBA players turn Coaches like Olsen Racela, Gee Abanilla, as well as retaining the man that gave them the 2011 title, Ato Agustin. 

Heck, even the former Head Coach of Gilas Pilipinas 1.0, Rajko Toroman, took over the Head Coaching duties, and all of them failed to give more championships to the team.

This was when the longtime Assistant Coach of the Blaze Boosters, Leo Austria, was promoted to be the main brain in the coaching staff during the return of the Beermen in the league.

He knew what needed to be done since he had seen and heard personally the internal conflict of the squad. Since the main issue was playing time, Coach Leo first developed his desired starting lineup. After that, he shortened his bench, only allowing 8 to 9 subs per game.

This is then where he created the perfect recipe for his iconic “Death 5”.

3. The “Death 5” and its Supporting Cast

“Superteams” in the PBA weren’t even a thing, not until players with high potential were properly developed and trained for a very long time within the team and then were able to bring home numerous titles.

The 6-foot-10 June Mar Fajardo, who was the 2013 MVP, was coached to become a versatile big man for the SMB. Coach Leo made him the number 1 option on offense. Arwind Santos, the 6-foot-6 stretch forward, was trained to be the defensive player in the shaded area, guarding bigger and faster imports but at the same time having the green light to drain midrange buckets.

Alex Cabagnot is their reliable point guard who can orchestrate the tempo of their plays, allowing his teammates to be in their designated spots. They had a defensive shooting guard in Chris Ross. He was molded to be the defensive anchor of their lineup, as his main job was to guard the best local players of the opposing team. Lastly, Marcio Lassiter, a small forward who had one goal in mind, shoot them 3’s. A little bit of crossover was in his bag, but his three-point shooting is definitely the main weapon of his arsenal. 

Along with acquiring key players off the bench like Ronald Tubid, Chris Lutz, Yancy De Ocampo, and Brian Heruela. This made them a formidable foe to every team.

4. The Golden Dream

The starting first claimed the 2014-15 Philippine Cup trophy as they won a Game 7 thriller against the tough Alaska Aces led by the trio of Calvin Abueva, JV Casio, and Sonny Thoss. 

A lot of fans looked at this as a “usual thing” as SMB was used to winning championships, and this one felt nothing special. Until they took over the league.

They met the Aces in the Finals during the Governor’s Cup. The Beermen, though, made it an easy path to the title as they swept the Alaska Aces led by the Best Import of the Conference, Rob Dozier.

They went on a whole other level in the following seasons.

In the 2015-16 Philippine Cup, they met with the Alaska Aces for the third time in the Finals. A lot of people thought the Aces would win this matchup as June Mar Fajardo was injured during the semifinals battle of the Beermen and wasn’t available up until Game 5 of the Finals, if the series would ever reach that point.

The Beermen were down 0-3, this is when the impossible happened as San Miguel won the series, winning 4 straight games. This miraculous comeback was labeled by San Miguel fans as “Beeracle,” as no basketball team had ever come back from a 0-3 deficit in a finals game ever in the history of the sport. 

In 2017, they defeated Barangay Ginebra San Miguel in 5 games to capture the 3-peat in the Philippine Cup. In the following conference, they won the Commissioner’s Cup trophy after defeating TNT Tropang Texters in 6 games.

They’ve also won the 2018 Philippine Cup against the Magnolia Hotshots in five games, making a historic 4-peat. Then, in 2019, they met again with the Hotshots and outlasted their sister-team rival in a climactic Game 7, where they carved their names in the history of Philippine basketball, winning the All-Filipino title five times in a row.

In the 2019 Commissioner’s Cup, they made themselves back-to-back champs as they won against TNT, even making another history as being the lowest-seeded team to win a title as they were the #7 seed at the start of the playoffs.