MANILA: Talk about bouncing back and Alaska has emphasized a point.
The Aces brought down a second straight fancied foe — less than a week after stumbling against a lightweight — to conclude its first round of assignment in the Philippine Cup at the Araneta Coliseum.
Guards Willie Miller and LA Tenorio formed a two-sided battering ram that hurt Purefoods Sunday night by doing most of the damage against the hulking Tender Juicy Giants in a 101-87 victory.
“There’s a whole second round to go, but this game was big for us because we really needed to reaffirm to ourselves that we can get going again,” coach Tim Cone said after the Aces started another winning streak going to take an 8-1 card into the second phase.
“We can stumble at times and fall down at times,” he said of their only loss, against Rain or Shine, last week. “But we’ve gotten off the floor really well. The challenge is to continue this to the second round.”
Alaska broke away in the third period with leads of as many as 19, bloating this to 22 early in the fourth before holding off the game Giants, who continued their roller-coaster campaign here to drop to .500 again, at 4-4 this time.
Miller scored 10 of his 22 in the third quarter, while Tenorio eight of his 24 in the final two periods, and that came after he shot with a perfect clip from the floor in the first half for 16 points.
Tony dela Cruz hit eight of his 12 in the fourth quarter, some of the baskets being truly clutch, especially the long jumper with 3:30 to go which beat the 24-second shotclock for an 89-78 Alaska lead.
Kerby Raymundo led the Giants with 25, a conference-high for the agile big man, with 13 of those coming in the fourth quarter as he tried single-handedly to bring Purefoods back in the game.
Former MVP James Yap was held down to just eight points by the Alaska defense. He was also forced to sit out a considerable part of the fourth period after hurting his knee in a freak collision with Dela Cruz. Sophomore role player Mark Borboran ushered the Aces to their biggest lead, 80-68, with 10:01 left in the fourth after a short jumper, before the Giants threatened one last time courtesy of Raymundo.
Purefoods came within nine twice, the last at 78-87 after Raymundo hit two free throws off the sixth foul of Joe Devance with 3:53 to go.
But Dela Cruz came up with that triple and then two free throws a littler later as the Aces scooted out of reach with a 91-79 lead with under three minutes left to play. “Meanwhile, Sta. Lucia also won a second straight game but not after getting scared out of its wits by darkhorse Barako Bull earlier, 80-77, in overtime.
Joseph Yeo scored six of his 16 points in extra time as the Realtors wiped out a one-point deficit for a 72-69 lead heading into the final 2:15 that eventually shoved Sta. Lucia to a fourth-running 5-3 card.
But the way the Realtors scraped past a foe most thought would be easy picking has left coach Boyet Fernandez worried.
“Barako Bull did a very good job tonight,” said Fernandez, after his crew had to rally from 10 points down late in the third quarter.
“My players played bad. They thought it was a won game (coming in). I’ve been trying to emphasize that for the last three days.”
Barako Bull failed to protect a 63-53 advantage — and bungled several opportunities to win the game in regulation -to go down in flames for the fifth straight game and drop to 2-7 overall.
