SAN MIG COFFEE GRINDS OUT WIN TO STAY ALIVE

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San Mig Coffee forced a winner-take-all Game 3 affair in their quarterfinals series against Alaska with a come-from-behind 70-65 win Wednesday in the 2014 PLDT Home TVolution PBA Commissioner’s Cup at the Smart-Araneta Coliseum.

Nursing a bruised rib injury, Marc Pingris spearheaded an inspired San Mig Coffee squad with 17 points and 12 rebounds, to go with his two blocks, that force the do-or-die Game 3 slated either Friday or Saturday, depending on the result of the Rain or Shine-Meralco game later in the evening.

“He stepped up and played big. It’s more of an emotional state of mind,” said San Mig head coach Tim Cone of Pingris. “He’s like that – a great marathoner that has run one too many marathons and he hit a wall and he’s really struggling to break through that wall. And in this point, I really can’t blame him for the way he is. He found a way.”

The winningest coach in PBA history added, “I was really hoping that his bruised rib injury would give him a break and force him to have a break, and hopefully now that he’s got that break, he has recovered from it now.”

Joe Devance had 13 markers, while James Mays also added a double-double of 12 points and 11 boards for San Mig,

“It’s a real high scoring game, real up-and-down, a lot of three-point shooting. This is just a grind-it-out basketball and that’s what we tried to do in the second half. We tried to bring in some new things and that kind of blew up in our faces, and we’re like, ‘let’s just grind it out.’ Go back to some stuff that we’ve done before and worked for us which got us back in the game,” said Cone, of the game which was actually the lowest scoring game in the conference.

Shooting blanks in the first half, the Coffee Mixers came back from being down by as big as 13 late in the second quarter and clamped down on defense in the last two quarters.

The Coffee Mixers withheld Alaska scoreless for eight minutes in the payoff period, where they turned a 57-51 deficit into a 10-point advantage courtesy of a 16-0 blast to turn the lead in their favor, 67-57.

Defense also played a part in that breakaway run as the Mixers held the Aces to a 0-for-11 shooting from the floor and forced into two turnovers.

Still, Alaska kept on crawling its way back to the game with baskets from Cyrus Baguio, Dondon Hontiveros, and JVee Casio in the final minute and sliced the lead to just four, 69-65.

The Aces still had a chance to trim the lead further, but Rob Dozier and Casio misfired their three-pointers as San Mig escaped with the five-point win.

“Somehow, we won it and I’m not sure how, but we’ll take it and see what we could do in Game 3. We needed a win and we haven’t won in seemingly a long time and I think we’ve lost six or seven games, so this is something which would hopefully give us some confidence and maybe we’ll start making some shots and play with a little bit more pizzaz. We just seem so flat out there all the time.

“They’re not going to lay down because they like to win,” added Cone, who also admitted that the solid Alaska defense gave them a lot of problems in the game.

“It’s just a huge struggle playing against Alaska’s defense. It’s hard to find any gaps or breaks within their defense. It’s so incredibly solid. They’re very frustrating to play. It’s hard to get a rhythm, they take you off on what you want to do,” he explained.

“Whether we can pull it off again either Friday or Saturday, I hope so, but they’re defending at a championship level, without a doubt. Dozier and Sonny Thoss are just two beasts to play against, their defense is just phenomenal. I’m really amazed by it,” also said Cone.

The American mentor also noted that this series, as a lot of people expected it, won’t be decided on the offensive end, but it would be by both team’s defensive gameplans.

“We defended really well in Game 1 and we lost it. We defended really well in the first half and got beat up. They just outdefended us. We’ve been defending well, so I just think it just came down to some gaps in their defense that kind of lifted us up defensively,” he said.

“I’m just real proud of the guys for staying in there and grinding and pulling out a win.”

Dozier led the Aces with 22 points and 13 rebounds, while Hontiveros had 14 of his 16 markers in the second half.

“We’ve got two real good defensive teams out there. It’s hard to pull surprises when we play each other,” Cone said. (RL)

The scores: (Click HERE for full boxscores)

SAN MIG COFFEE 70 – Pingris 17, Devance 13, Mays 12, Barroca 10, Yap 9, Simon 4, Sangalang 2, Reavis 2, Mallari 1, Melton 0.

ALASKA 65 – Dozier 22, Hontiveros 16, Baguio 7, Casio 6, Jazul 6, Abueva 4, Thoss 3, Manuel 1, Reyes 0, Dela Cruz 0, Espinas 0.

Quarterscores: 12-16, 24-36, 49-50, 70-65.

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