MANILA, 25 November 2006 — Jong Uichico knows that he has all the tools to make Barangay Ginebra succeed. Other than the most important ingredient that truly makes winners — desire.

“It’s human nature, when you’re on top, you tend to drop your guard,” Uichico said, moments after his highly-touted Gin Kings snatched an 84-78 victory after being pushed to the limit by a Coca-Cola team they were supposed to beat easily in the PBA Philippine Cup eliminations last night.

“Coming into the game, I told them that they cannot take any team for granted,” Uichico added. “It was a reminder (for them) that we can’t take teams for granted.”

In improving to 8-4 and gaining a share of second place with idle Red Bull, the Kings failed to take complete control and even had to claw their way back from 10 points down in the third quarter against the Tigers.

Coca-Cola, Uichico acknowledged, played with a lot of heart and desire “for 48 minutes,” actually kept its composure despite blowing a 58-48 lead.

The Tigers still stayed with the Kings until late in the game until Ginebra struck from the free throw line to deal Coke its ninth loss in 12 games overall.

Mark Caguioa scored 12 of his team-high 23 points in the final 3:58 of the third period, single-handedly bringing Ginebra back into the fight after being held without a bucket for a four-minute stretch before that.

“Compared to the way we played Sta. Lucia, I’d say that we had an off-night offensively,” Uichico explained. “There was some scoring missing somewhere, as evidenced by our (total) output.”

Against the Realtors in Palawan last Saturday, the Kings came out on top of a high-scoring contest where Caguioa led the way with 32 points and eight assists.

Last night, the “Spark” made sure that his contribution counted when it mattered as Ginebra kept a top two finish in this round well within sight for an automatic berth in the semifinals.

“But we can’t expect to win many games playing this way,” the Ginebra coach said. “We have the tendency to relax and that is a big concern for me.”

Rudy Hatfield was the only other King in twin digits with 16 as Eric Menk was good for only five points and JayJay Helterbrand, Ginebra’s starting guard, six.

Alaska won back-to-back games for the first time, holding off Talk ‘N Text in the stretch for a 110-105 victory in the nightcap.

Jeffrey Cariaso hit four straight free throws as the Aces, the pre-season champions, rose to 4-7 while dealing the Phone Pals their sixth loss in 13 matches.

Former MVP Willie Miller paced the Aces with 29 points and Nic Belasco had 17 as the Aces seem to have gotten out of the rut they were in to put themselves in prime contention of advancing to the quarterfinals.

“This (win) is going go a long way in helping boost our confidence,” Alaska’s Tim Cone said. “We’re now three-of-four after a 1-6 start. We’ve scored our first back-to-back wins and hopefully we can sustain the momentum.”

“We didn’t play that well but we played good enough at endgame,” and sometimes, that’s what’s most important,” Cone added. “We executed well while doing extra hustle and having the patience in executing our

patterns.”

Jimmy Alapag led Talk ‘N Text with 22 points, but Asi Taulava was good for only 12 and the usually prolific Ren-Ren Ritualo was held down to just three markers by the well-planned Alaska defense.