The Aces pulled out all the things they needed to in a wild and wooly endgame to upend the crowd-darling Gin Kings, 76-72, just hours after Yap towed the Llamados to a 108-102 decision of Rain or Shine despite several television news crews bothering him for interviews minutes before the game at the Araneta Coliseum.

Diamon Simpson scored 20 points and cleared 22 boards and Cyrus Baguio hit some pretty scintillating buckets on the way to 15 markers as the duo led the Aces in maintaining their mastery of the Kings in playoff series for the year.

Alaska swept Ginebra in four games in the Philippine Cup semifinals, but coach Tim Cone was quick to dismiss that there was no comparing both match-ups since imports are present here and that they both had different players then.

“People keep comparing this to the last series, but if you really look at it, the teams are so different. Players have changed, the teams are a lot different,” Cone said. “We’ll try to take advantage of our big import.

“It’s a nice comparison, but it really doesn’t apply.”

Baguio and Simpson hit six points each in the final quarter and the Alaska defense then held the Kings to just 13 points in that same stretch.

Actually, Alaska’s defensive blanket was effective all night as only two players scored in twin digits for the Kings. Chris Daniels’ 16 were good enough to pace the team with Ronald Tubid finishing with 13, 11 of them in the third and zero in the payoff frame.

Not only that, Alaska concentrated on shutting down Mark Caguioa and Willie Miller and held the usually prolific duo to just six points each on a combined 5-of-24 shooting from the field in a total of 46 minutes.

Caguioa also had at least three crucial minutes in the stretch, one of them was when he refused to give up the ball on a 2-on-1 break and electing to go to the basket even with the 6-foot-7 Joe Devance all over his face.

Game 2s of both series are scheduled Friday at the Cuneta Astrodome in Pasay, and both the Aces and the Llamados could more or less end their respective quarterfinal duels with another victory then.

Yap, meanwhile, kept the Llamados in the hunt in the first three periods before getting a lot of help from Peter June Simon in the fourth as Derby Ace turned back a hard-finishing Rain or Shine side.

The 2006 MVP Yap still played great even after celebrity wife Kris Aquino left for the United States with their son earlier in the day, prompting news entities to send crews to interview the Derby Ace shooter and provide an unwelcome distraction minutes before the game.

At least two television station reporters were even trying to corner Yap when the team strode onto the floor for its warm-up, but this didn’t bother Yap, who went about with business and delivered the blows that hurt the Elasto Painters.

Yap scored 31 points, all but six coming in the first three quarters, while Simon came off the bench in the third quarter to toss in 12 of his 14 in the fourth, most of them when the game was truly on the line.

“James kept us alive the whole game and PJ just put the finishing touches,” Derby Ace coach Ryan Gregorio told reporters.

“(Winning) Game 1 is always important for momentum,” he continued. “What made the win a lot sweeter was that we played all-Filipino for almost the entire fourth quarter with our import (Cliff Brown) suffering from cramps as early as the third period.”

Brown still had 17 points and 10 boards, even as Rod Nealy led the Painters with 30 but had a critical miss in the waning seconds that aided the Derby Ace victory.

Solomon Mercado hit 13 points in the first two quarters but was starved to just one point the rest of the way by the stingy Derby Ace defense.

Gabriel Norwood had 24 points, seven rebounds and six assists for Rain or Shine, which took this same Derby Ace crew to the full route in the Philippine Cup quarterfinals.

“You just have to appreciate the focus of the man,” Gregorio said in heaping praises on Yap’s focus. “He can just shut it (distractions) off and play the game. There are other players in the team with problems.

“The only difference is, his are much publicized.”