Petron forces Game 7 with 99-88 victory

With its offensive game in trouble of conking out at a most dangerous time, Petron Blaze turned to Elijah Millsap for the bailout job.
And when Millsap was hitting his stride, the rest of the Boosters did their job defensively and sealed a win that took their PBA Governors’ Cup best-of-seven title playoffs to a most apt ending — a winner-take-all match.
“This team is unbelievable,” Millsap said after hitting 13 points in the fourth quarter of a roller-coaster 99-88 Game 6 decision of San Mig Coffee before more than 15,000 boisterous fans at the Araneta Coliseum in Cubao.
“We just refused to lose. We weren’t going to lose this game,” Millsap, who scored nine of those points in a string to keep the Boosters in the fight, said. “We didn’t take this game for granted.”
Petron led by as many as 16 points in the first half, by 13 near the end of the third and had a 74-63 lead going into the fourth quarter which made it look that it would be a cakewalk the rest of the way.
But that was until the Mixers fought doggedly hard – with import Marqus Blakely and former two-time MVP James Yap cooling their heels on the bench – to even lead by two near the halfway mark of the fourth quarter.
Millsap first drained a triple that erased an 80-82 deficit before scoring six straight after that to make up the top half of a 13-6 spurt that decided the outcome as Petron went into the final two minutes sitting on a 93-86 lead.
San Mig was in the lead for the last time at 86-85 after a Peter June Simon drive entering the final 5:05, but the Mixers would never score until the 1:42 mark which made it 88-93.
Marqus Blakely, the Best Import of the Conference, had two crucial errors in that drought and Yap and Alex Mallari couldn’t drain triple attempts to also aid the Petron breakaway.
“It is understood in the team that one of the leaders is Elijah. He did a tremendous job not only in scoring, but leading this team to victory today,” said rookie Petron coach Gee Abanilla.
“We’re just very happy about the opportunity presented to us. It’s a great honor to be playing against an elite team like them, especially coached by Tim Cone,” he added. “It’s anybody’s ball game. We’ll do our best effort to represent the organization well and come out really well on Friday.
“It’s a Game 7 of the Finals. It’s a dream for every player and a coach to be in a situation like this.”
San Mig actually had the lead early, 11-6, before almost totally losing a grip of the contest after being held to just 39 points in the first two quarters.
Going into a Game 7 is not unfamiliar terrain for the Mixers, who won the Commissioner’s Cup last season over Talk ‘N Text in a rubber match that even went into overtime.
Also in this tournament last season, the Mixers and Blakely were in the losing end of a classic Game 7 to Rain or Shine.
But being the veterans that they are in a game like that, Cone is not at all sounding optimistic.
“We certainly had our chances,” Cone, who can equal the all-time mark of the legendary Baby Dalupan of championships won with 15 should he go all the way here, said.
“Obviously, we wanted to avoid a winner-take-all game because too many things can happen. We didn’t play really well tonight. We played well, but not great,” he said. “As I have been saying, we need to be firing on all cylinders if we want to beat this team.”
One of the cylinders that was missing was Mark Barroca, who came into the game shooting an average of 11.2 points. Last night, he was held scoreless in a 29-minute stint starting out at the point guard spot.