“Big-game James made the shots and we made the necessary stops in the endgame,” beamed Derby Ace coach Ryan Gregorio shortly after the win that left idle Talk ‘N Text in the solo lead.

“The best defense in the league held at the right time,” he added. “And it’s not everyday that you force such a strong team like San Miguel to 27 turnovers. Our defense pulled it out for us tonight.”

Derby Ace, the reigning Philippine Cup champion who has stood out in this conference despite import woes, rose to 9-5 in the standings, moving within two games of its victim for second place after San Miguel dropped to 11-3.

The Llamados actually hammered out the win even with Cliff Brown fouling out with still 5:34 left and them trailing the Beermen, 71-76, as Yap anchored a strong finishing kick that was capped by a leaning jumper with 6.7 seconds left for the final count.

After that, the Beermen mapped out the potential game-winning play that was botched up when Marc Pingris pressured Dondon Hontiveros to take a three-pointer that badly missed the mark.

“It’s always nice to win against a very strong team like San Miguel,” Gregorio said. “And what made it more special was the fact that we did it even with our import fouling out.”

Gregorio later said that they are indeed looking for a possible third import after Brown hit just 11 points on 4-of-17 shooting.

“Honestly, I don’t have names (of potential replacements) now, but we will definitely need a lot of help from our import (in our future games),” he said.

Yap, who will officially become a presidential brother-in-law when Noynoy Aquino assumes office on July 1, finished with 23 points with Nino Canaleta  adding 14 and two more locals chipping in with 10 points or more.

Gabriel Freeman, last season’s Best Import, led the defending champion Beermen with 27 points, including a brave lay-up off a Derby Ace double team with 21.4 seconds remaining that ushered San Miguel in front for the final time at 82-81.

But being two games behind the No. 2 spot, Gregorio knows that it’s still going to be a steep uphill climb for his wards.

“We have a lot of games left,” he said. “But we will continue to step on the gas and see where that leads us. There’s hope for as long as we’re still breathing.”

Meanwhile,  Rain or Shine also enhanced its chances of making the quarterfinals outright after scoring a 91-81 decision of Sta. Lucia in the first game.

Jay-R Reyes and sophomore guard TY Tang stepped up in the fourth quarter by scoring half of the Elasto Painters’ total there as Rain or Shine bounced back from a humiliating loss to the Tropang Texters last week to rise to 7-6.

That put the Painters within two games of tying for the fifth and last spot that will make the playoffs outright even as the Realtors slumped to their fifth straight loss and are now at 4-9.

Rain or Shine mentor Caloy Garcia, though, was not totally happy with the way they won after they blew a 14-point third quarter lead and had to be dragged into a close endgame by the Realtors.

“We have the tendency to relax,” Garcia said. “We have to fix our problems. We play Derby Ace on Friday and that is crucial because they are one of the teams we can catch for an outright (quarterfinal) slot.”

Rain or Shine’s next three games will be against powerhouses – the Llamados on Friday, Alaska on June 16 and San Miguel on June 18 – and Garcia said that they need to beat two-out-of-three to have a chance to avoid the wildcard phase.