MANILA: The cliché hitting two birds with one stone applied perfectly for Alaska on Wednesday night.

The Aces won a game they badly needed to against Barangay Ginebra to make the PBA Commissioner’s Cup playoffs and won it by the exact spread that put Alaska in the middle of the pack and with a level chance in the quarterfinals.

Damion James capped a 29-point night with a wide-open layup inside the last five seconds as the Aces carved out a 104-98 victory over the Gin Kings at the Araneta Coliseum in Cubao, qualifying as the No. 6 seed for a best-of-three quarterfinals slot.

A loss would have knocked the Aces out of further contention and a win under six points would have put them in No. 7, which would mean a clash with No. 2 Talk ‘N Text and with the huge task of beating the Tropang Texters two straight times to advance.

And because they got the two things they set out to do, the Aces will now be playing defending champion Purefoods in a race-to-two series starting tomorrow and Alaska put the Gin Kings at No. 8.

That means that Ginebra will be playing No. 1 Rain or Shine on Saturday with the Elasto Painters needing to win just once to make the Final Four, the same bonus that the Texters garnered for finishing in the top two.

“I’m just happy to be in the playoffs,” Alaska coach Alex Compton told reporters after the thrilling win that saw the Aces blow a 15-point lead to trail, 90-89, going into the last five minutes.

“It’s been a tough conference for us,” Compton continued, referring to the struggles the team went through. Alaska started out by losing its first two games and after being 2-2 at one point, had a tailspin that almost saw the Aces bomb out early.

Compton mapped out the perfect final play coming off a timeout with 6.4 seconds left after Greg Slaughter had made it 102-98 with a short stab off James.

Dondon Hontiveros, who also made a critical three-pointer just minutes earlier that had the Aces taking a 97-93 lead, made the inbounds pass to James, who had a wide-open lane to the basket resulting in a very crafty play drawn up by Compton.

“I just did a simple face-cut and finish,” Compton said. “The guys just did a great job finishing (the play).”

Cyrus Baguio scattered 17 points that went with five assists and won Player of the Game honors, and Calvin Abueva finished with 16 and RJ Jazul 10 for the Aces, who stayed on track to making a title series for the second straight conference.

The Aces lost an epic seven-game series to San Miguel Beer in the Philippine Cup, and, unlike the Beermen, were able to gather themselves at just the right time here to advance.

San Miguel, despite having the best all-Filipino team in the conference, was eliminated together with Globalport and newcomers KIA Motors and Blackwater.

Blackwater, though, exited with a winning feeling after handing undermanned Meralco an 84-72 defeat in the first game.

Marcus Douthit scored 27 points and had 13 rebounds and JP Erram scattered a career-high 21 for the Elite, who wound up in the cellar nonetheless despite closing out with a 3-8 record.

Meralco didn’t need to win that game since the Bolts were sealed to play sister squad NLEX in a best-of-three series.

A Meralco win would have given the Bolts No. 5 seeding and the Road Warriors would have been sixth. But the result against Blackwater simply had both exchanging places.