His team couldn’t give that to him Wednesday night, but Peter June Simon did.

Simon scored a career-high 42 points, playing with sustained brilliance all game that led the Llamados to a 102-97 victory over Air21 Wednesday night which gave the defending champions their first winning streak in the PBA Philippine Cup at the Araneta Coliseum.

The 6-foot-1 swingman, regarded as one of the finest sixth men in the league ever, got the rare call to start and scored 11 of Derby Ace’s first 13 points.

But the Llamados did not start as hot as Simon did, as they trailed by 13 late in the period after the Express were jumpstarted by 10 Wesley Gonzales points in the quarter, which Air21 took, 27-16.

“We’ve been starting bad for the last four games,” Gallent, who took over from the multi-titled Ryan Gregorio at the start of the season, told reporters. “We have to have good starts (in our next games) because we might not be able to recover.

“We can’t afford to play as if we are diesel engines needing a long warmup.”

Simon certainly wasn’t, as he was on target right from the get-go.

The 43rd overall pick by defunct Sta. Lucia in the 2001 Draft couldn’t have been deadlier, hitting all 11 of his two-point attempts, 2-of-4 triples and 14-of-18 free throws to complete the highest scoring game by a local since the 45 of Solomon Mercado for Rain or Shine last July 11.

“He’s been playing well this conference and it is my hope that he continues to do so,” Gallent said as he pointed out that special games like the one that Simon had certainly helps the squad offset the absence of big men Rafi Reavis, Marc Pingris and Kerby Raymundo.

Rookie Rabeh Al-Hussaini had 16 of his career-high 25 points in the fourth quarter for the Express, who dropped to a 3-5 card like Derby Ace.

Al-Hussaini, the former two-time UAAP MVP with the Ateneo Blue Eagles, also had 13 rebounds and was the sole reason why the Llamados weren’t able to blow the Express off the floor in the second half.

Derby Ace scored 32 points in the second period and was in the driver’s seat at the end of the first half. The Llamados turned up the heat some more in the third period and even led by 10 on several occasions, the last at 69-59.

Reigning MVP James Yap had 16 points, all in the second and third periods, while Rico Maierhofer and Roger Yap chipped in with nine apiece and finished with 15 rebounds and 10 assists, respectively.

Simon’s final three points came from the free throw line inside the last 11 seconds and it sealed the win and gave him a 37.5 points-per-game average in those two Derby Ace victories.

Ronjay Buenafe had 14 points for Air21, which actually got four others to finish in twin digits.

Later in the night, Alaska snapped a four-game losing streak with ease by breaking away in the first half to post an ugly 96-67 rout of Powerade in the second game.

The Aces were as fluid as they could get and found little trouble disposing off the Tigers, who slumped to their second straight loss to fall into a tie with Derby Ace, Air21 and newcomer Meralco.

Even the second unit that coach Tim Cone allowed to finish the game didn’t give the Tigers room to budge, with Bondon Custodio giving the Aces a 90-55 lead with a keyhole jumper going into the final six minutes.

“I guess we were due to come out and play a really good game,” Cone said as if struggling to come up with the words to describe how great his Aces played. “We haven’t been able to sustain our play (in the last four games) and we weren’t able to respond wekk to adversity.

“Today we didn’t have that much adversity because we got out hard,” he added. “It was one of those games that were a blueprint, one which you could wish you could do every night.”

Cyrus Baguio scored 17 points and had five steals and LA Tenorio 15 points, five boards and six assists in another brilliant all-around game for the Aces.

Gary David, the tournament’s leading scorer coming into the game with an average of 24.5 points, was clamped down to just nine in 34 minutes by the unforgiving Alaska defense. Rob Reyes and Ren-Ren Ritualo had 12 points each to pace the Tigers.