MANILA: Jason Castro stepped up big time on Sunday night, and just like that, Talk 'N Text is back in the groove in its title showdown with San Mig Coffee.

Scoring the bulk of his 30 points when the Tropang Texters established control in the first three periods, Castro also buried the dagger on the Mixers’ collective hearts in the stretch for an 86-76 win over the Mixers and a 1-1 score in their PBA Commissioner’s Cup championship series at the Araneta Coliseum.

“I should make special mention of Jason Castro, he carried us in this game tonight,” Norman Black of Talk 'N Text said as his Tropang Texters wrested psychological edge going into Tuesday’s pivotal Game 3 also at the Big Dome in Cubao.

Though he did score 17 points in an 80-95 series-opening loss on Friday, Castro, was far from his dominating self in that defeat, which snapped Talk 'N Text’s astounding 13-game winning streak.

But in Game 2, it was an entirely different story, as San Mig Coffee coach Tim Cone never found the answer to Castro, who rifled in a trey inside the final three minutes that built an 82-73 Talk 'N Text lead.

The Gilas Pilipinas standout and the point guard regarded as the best in Asia, Castro tossed in 25 of his total in the first three periods and then came back from a brief spell to hit that win-sealing triple under heavy pressure.

That triple was the biggest in the game, as the Mixers came charging back from 16 points down at the start of the fourth quarter to creep to within six points behind the efforts of import James Mays.

“But effort is the number one thing in us winning this game,” explained the multi-titled Black of the recipe to the series-tying win, which he emphasized after Game 1 where they trailed by as large as 19 points.

“We played with a lot more intensity, a lot more energy (compared to Game 1),” he continued. “We had to go back to the drawing board (after Game 1) to see what the San Mig team was doing to us (defensively).”

San Mig’s stars were the ones who were out of sorts on Sunday, and coach Tim Cone couldn’t find the solution to the shooting woes of James Yap and Peter June Simon, his top two Game 1 scorers.

In fact, both were cooling their heels on the bench when San Mig made one final attempt to turn things around. They played for a combined 48 minutes, something which could serve the Mixers well in Game 3.

Mays hit his final eight points inside the final six minutes and put the Mixers to as close as 73-79 after having trailed by 16 at the end of the third period.

But Castro hit that triple and all but snuffed the fight out of San Mig, which is shooting to win this title to be able to hold all three PBA jewels at the same time.

Meanwhile, the Best Player of the Conference race seems to have boiled down to a two-man game between teammates Castro and Ranidel De Ocampo.

Castro, with his performance in Game 2 , should garner a lot of votes in the final day of balloting. The award will be handed out before tip-off of the third game.

Howell also seems to have put a lock of the Best Import of the Conference award over Mays and San Miguel Beer’s Kevin Jones, who actually finished second in the statistical points race but saw his chances dim after the Beermen exited in the quarterfinals.

Asi Taulava, after helping Air21 make the Final Four and come within a win of making the title series, was fourth in the SP race for the BPC. But the failure of the Express to make the Finals could tell heavily on his chances.