Alaska put off San Miguel Beer’s championship celebration plans for the meantime and arranged one of its own.

Fighting hardest in this best-of-seven title series for the PBA Philippine Cup, the Aces on Sunday night forged a deciding game with the Beermen after pounding out an 87-76 victory before a virtual sea of humanity at the Araneta Coliseum in Cubao.

The Aces earned the right to put their own party materials hanging in the rafters after playing their best game on both ends in the series, keeping their bid to snap a 14-year drought for an All-Filipino title alive in front of more than 14,000 fans.

Dondon Hontiveros scattered 18 points and three more tossed in 11 or more and the Aces got a huge lift when starting point guard JV Casio snapped out of his offensive funk that kept him scoreless the last two games – both San Miguel wins.

Alaska trailed, 18-4, after more than seven minutes of the first period before coming alive in the second quarter courtesy of 10 Hontiveros points that had the Aces taking a 42-36 into the halftime break.

The Aces would never be ruffled after that, staying composed the rest of the way before Casio hit a looping layup in front on June Mar Fajardo for a 54-40 lead going into the last seven minutes of the third quarter.

Casio would go on to shoot nine points after shrugging off the effects of the colds that slowed him down the last two games.

“I know the history behind the Araneta (Coliseum), the Thrilla in Manila was fought here,” Alaska coach Alex Compton said. “I wish I can say that I had the master game plan like Muhammad Ali against Joe Frazier: the rope-a-dope.

“But (trailing) 18-4 was never planned,” Compton, who could win Alaska’s first all-Filipino in 14 years with a victory in Game 7 on Wednesday, said. “I’m just really grateful that our guys play as hard as they do.”

Sonny Thoss scored 13 points that went with nine rebounds and played Fajardo hard defensively the entire night.

Fajardo, the reigning MVP who on Wednesday night won the Best Player of the Conference award pulling away from Alaska’s Calvin Abueva, scored just nine points off a series-low seven attempts.

“We knew from the start that (closing Alaska out) wasn’t going to be easy,” San Miguel coach Leo Austria rued later on. “Though we had a good start, the bottom line here is we got outhustled.”

Vic Manuel tossed in 12 markers and Cyrus Baguio added 10 for the Aces, whose last championship came in 2012 when they won the Commissioner’s Cup with Robert Dozier as import.

Arwind Santos paced the Beermen with 24 points and Marcio Lassiter contributed 19.

But what slowed San Miguel down was the inability of the other big guns to break free from the stingy Alaska defense. Alex Cabagnot and Chris Lutz were held to a combined 12 points.

The last time that a team that trailed 2-3 and won a best-of-seven title series came in 2009 when Talk ‘N Text rallied to nip Alaska. Thoss is the only remnant of that ill-fated squad.

Alaska has now gone to 12-0 this conference when limiting enemies to below 80 points. San Miguel is averaging just a shade over 74 against the Aces in four total losses in this tournament.

The Aces also carved out the impressive win despite having to play Abueva for just under 16 minutes because of foul trouble.

Abueva, the Aces’ energy guy, had just five points and six rebounds and, unlike the other superstars coming from both sides, can enter the do-or-die game much fresher after having sat out most of Game 6.

“The good thing about this (loss) is that we still have a 50-50 chance (in Game 7),” Austria said. “We don’t know what will happen in Game 7. They (Aces) had good adjustments for today, hopefully, we can counter (on Wednesday).”