THE ELIMINATIONS of the PBA Commissioner’s Cup is nearing its homestretch, the jockeying for playoff positions reaching intense levels and basically the same teams are looked headed to advancing.

Meralco is still leading the pack with a 6-2 card, followed closely by San Miguel Beer at 5-2 and then Alaska at 5-3, their records more or less assuring that the race for the top two berths boiling down to a three-cornered fight with the Beermen having the inside track.

After having won over the Bolts and the Aces in the elimination round, the Beermen will win out in the quotient system if they fall into a tie with either or both Alaska and Meralco, practically giving San Miguel an easy route to another Final Four appearance and closer to taking that second step to a Triple Crown sweep.

Blackwater was the first team to get the boot after a sorry loss to Phoenix Petroleum on Wednesday night, the 120-124 overtime setback leaving a foul taste in the mouth of coach Leo Isaac.

The Elite had a golden chance to win that game in regulation when Carlo Lastimosa was sent to the line with nine-tenths of a second left for a four-point play.

He was complaining of a sore right hand after making that three-point shot that tied it all up at 109-all but refused to be substituted even if members of the coaching staff were telling him to leave the game on account of the injury.

Lastimosa threw up the most horrid looking free throw attempt fans have seen in a long, long while, the shot not having the slightest chance of going in because it was against the glass and way to the right.

After losing in overtime, where Lastimosa would go on to shoot seven more points — including a triple from deep right corner with under a minute left — members of Isaac’s coaching staff and other team officials were left to wonder outside the locker room what went wrong near the end of regulation.

One member of the team’s management staff quoted one player as saying: “I can also miss that free throw, but not in that manner. He never gave it (free throw) a chance at going in.”

We can understand how the team would feel after such a deflating defeat, for it also pulled the curtains down on Blackwater’s campaign.

But it was such a painful way to take the exit, more so with the team’s leading scorer practically refusing a team order, which could have given them a chance to win.

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This corner is not saying that Lastimosa threw the game. No way. We can never prove that.

What we are pointing out was his refusal to be relieved at the most crucial time of the contest, when there was an entire bench which could have taken his place for that potential game-winning free throw.

Arab News confirmed that it was Aris Dimaunahan, Isaac’s chief assistant, who told Lastimosa that he can be replaced because of the injury on his right hand.

His refusal practically had him defying a direct order that would have benefitted the team.

Lastimosa’s case is not different from the one that Gary David had with Meralco very recently, when the decorated Gilas Pilipinas standout refused to enter the waning minutes of a losing game by the Bolts.

Coach Norman Black saw it as a direct form of insubordination and penalized David swiftly. The four-time Scoring Champion was suspended and fined an undisclosed amount at first before being eventually relegated to the Unrestricted Free Agent’s list.

That means that David, now 37 years old, is free to negotiate a transfer to a team of his choosing, provided that he will give up his huge salary that is remaining in his contract that is reportedly set to expire at the end of August.

There are website reports that quoted Lastimosa as crying foul over Isaac’s statement after the game, when the coach addressed no one in particular in saying: I know my basketball. There is a good side and a bad side to it. I just hope that you are not on the bad side.”

You can interpret Isaac’s statement in so many ways, but from where I sit, I think that part of being “on the bad side” is refusing to be a team player by not allowing someone who is in better health to take that free throw.

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With the elimination round entering its most crucial stages, not all endgames have become interesting of late.

Games which have been decided way before the final buzzer actually sounds are taking a long time to finish because of the quotient system as teams who already look to be clear winners are trying to spread their respective margins of victory.

Squads who are obviously on the way to taking a tumble are calling timeouts with seconds left on the clock in order to prune down huge deficits.

Blame the quotient system and the format that forces its implementation in robbing the game of some of its beauty.

Teams are forced to do those things in order to earn some insurance in case they fall into a tie with their opponent that day, a bigger winning margin certain to help them when the tiebreaker is allowed.

But that is not good for the team’s point of view, as you will drop several rungs in the standings if you end up tied with teams that beat you even though you finish the elimination round with the same records.

Let playoff games be played, I say, and give the truly better team that day the better position that it deserves.

Applying the quotient system is like breaking a tie in golf by using the countback.

Will wee see the winner of the US Masters decided on a countback?

The PBA Commissioner’s Office, I think, should give the current format a good review and make the teams play playoff games. Besides, it’s what the fans want.