ACES OUT TO KNOCK MIXERS OUT
Arguably the hottest team in the league right now, Alaska is aiming for the jugular when it battles San Mig Super Coffee in Game 2 of their best-of-three quarterfinals series in the 2014 PLDT Home TVolution PBA Commissioner’s Cup Wednesday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
The Aces will gun for their seventh straight victory, and also for a third straight win over the Coffee Mixers in a span of four days, when they clash at 5:45 p.m.
Alaska drew first blood in Game 1 with a 86-77 win last Monday. Rob Dozier had 24 points and 15 rebounds as the Aces held San Mig Coffee scoreless for a six-minute stretch in the payoff period, where they padded their lead to 15, 84-69, with 2:19 to play.
The locals also stepped up for the Aces as Cyrus Baguio had 14 points, Calvin Abueva and Sonny Thoss finished with 12 apiece.
“One-zero in a best-of-three series is huge. It’s not a guarantee that you can win it, but it puts you in a good position,” said Alaska coach Luigi Trillo.
He added, “This team (San Mig Coffee) is tired. They’ve won back-to-back championships and we know that they’re hurting. All we’ve done is we’ve gotten closer but it still takes two to knock them out.”
“We know it’s going to get harder.”
San Mig Coffee import James Mays, Marc Pingris, James Yap, and Justin Melton bucked various injuries and returned to the Mixers’ lineup in Game 1, but the four were a shadow of their usual selves. (RL)
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