MANILA: Pushed against the wall, San Miguel just came up
with another desperate measure and reaped the fruit.
A new coach again called the shots for the Beermen, who
survived elimination with a 96-94 decision of Alaska to extend their
best-of-seven PBA Fiesta Conference championship series into a sixth game at
the Araneta Coliseum.
Gee Abanilla was the latest to be tapped to give Siot
Tanquingcen a spell on the bench, and the Beermen looked a lot different as
they controlled majority of the contest to prune the Aces’ lead to 3-2 and keep
their wafer-thin hopes alive.
Abanilla utilized players who often warmed the bench in
these playoffs, with Denok Miranda starting at the point and delivering big
time and Mick Pennisi getting some minutes and providing timely baskets and
some inside presence for San Miguel.
Miranda knocked in San Miguel’s last basket with 2:14 left,
a long two-pointer that hit nothing but net, and it proved to be the marginal
twinner after Cyrus Baguio barely missed winning it all for the Aces with a
triple at the buzzer.
“Alaska will make the adjustments,” Abanilla told reporters
after notching his first win in a title series. He also had stints calling the
shots for Red Bull under Yeng Guiao, but never in games of this magnitude.
“Tim (Cone) is a very brilliant coach and will use technical
and motivational adjustments,” Abanilla, who said he expects to again be at the
San Miguel helm on Wednesday, added. “I think a coach who can motivate and
bring out the best in his players will be successful in the next game.”
Pennisi hit three triples and finished with nine points,
three rebounds and an assist as he played good enough defense in trying to
muscle Diamon Simpson out of his sweet spot underneath.
Jay Washington led San Miguel with 19 points, rebounding
from a five-point effort in Game 4 where the Beermen were humbled, 96-90, to be
on the brink.
San Miguel shot close to 56% from two-point zone and almost
90% from the stripe as the Beermen made 16-of-18 freebies.
The Beermen took a 10-point lead with 8:01 left at 89-79
after Gabriel Freeman, the tournament’s Best Import, hit a running jumper off
Simpson. And just when it looked like San Miguel would coast the rest of the
way came another hard Alaska finish.
Down 90-96 after that Miranda jumper, Baguio drained a
triple just 10 seconds later and a folly of misses allowed Alaska to creep
within a bucket after Simpson split his charities off Washington with 1:20
left.
Arwind Santos then missed a three-pointer for the Beermen
and coach Tim Cone called a timeout for Alaska that set up Baguio perfectly for
the potential game-winner.
But the attempt bounced hard against the iron, triggering a
loud celebration among the predominantly San Miguel gallery.
“We just didn’t play well enough to win tonight,” Cone said.
“We had the last shot but came up short. Generally throughout the game they
outplayed us. But our guys didn’t quit and that’s good. We’ll see if we can
close it out on Wednesday.”
Simpson still went on to lead the Aces with 29 points and 18
rebounds and Joe Devance added 15 markers.
But Cone came into the press room still brimming with
confidence, for after all, he still has two shots to wrap this series up
starting with Game 6 on Wednesday also at the Araneta Coliseum.
“We took their best punch tonight and almost survived it,”
Cone said. “We’re a confident team and we have to finish this quick because
Diamon has another job waiting for him in Turkey.”
