San Mig Coffee kept its hopes of winning a third straight title alive, and Rain or Shine also stayed in the hunt of making a title series for the third consecutive conference.

That, in a nutshell, was how things stacked up on Wednesday night after the Mixers and the Elasto Painters hacked out contrasting wins over separate foes to take their respective PBA Commissioner’s Cup quarterfinal series with Alaska and Meralco, respectively, to the full route at the Araneta Coliseum.

San Mig held the Aces to just seven points in the first 11 minutes of the fourth period to pound out a 70-65 Game 2 victory before the Painters led by as large as 20 points in a rugged 102-93 win over the Bolts that had Rain or Shine coach Yeng Guiao challenging Cliff Hodge to a fight afterwards.

The Mixers actually dropped a 16-0 run in an eight-minute span and zoomed to a 10-point lead entering the final minute before holding off the Aces’ desperation rally.

“70-65? Really? That’s such a high-scoring game,” San Mig coach Tim Cone said, trying to keep a straight face. “Jeez, this is just grind-it-out basketball. It’s such a huge struggle playing against Alaska’s defense.”

The defense-oriented contest had the Mixers scoring just 12 points in the first period and 24 at the half, trailing the Aces by 12 going into the third period before getting it together and making a game out of it going into the fourth period.

Mark Barroca completed the go-ahead three-point play with 5:42 left for 58-57 and the next time that Alaska was able to score was at the 1:06 mark when Cyrus Baguio hit a left-handed layup.

But by the time that basket came, the Mixers already had a 67-57 lead.

Prior to that Baguio basket, the last field goal for the Aces came with 8:55 to go, which made it 57-51.

“They are playing at a championship level,” Cone said of his former team, which is being coached by his ex-chief deputy. “(Robert) Dozier and (Sonny) Thoss are two beasts that are tough to play against. They are phenomenal.

“But somehow we won it. I’m not sure how, but we’ll take it and see what we can do in Game 3.”

Marc Pingris hit the bulk of his 17 points from the free throw line which went with a team-high 12 rebounds as he plugged the hole made by the inability of import James Mays to free himself from the Alaska defense.

Mays, a usually reliable scorer, was held down to 12 points and 11 boards by Robert Dozier and Sonny Thoss, who were dominant inside.

Dozier led the Aces with 22 points and 13 boards, with Dondon Hontiveros playing his best offensive game of late and finishing with 16.

Rain or Shine, meanwhile, broke away from Meralco late in the first quarter to post the lopsided triumph.

It was a great way for the Elasto Painters to bounce back from a Game 1 loss and wrest momentum going into the deciding game on Saturday.

But it was tainted by a post-game incident that had Guiao waiting for Hodge on the way to the locker room for what the Rain or Shine coach believed was a deliberate attempt by the Meralco forward to hurt his players.

Hodge hit Raymond Almazan in the face with a closed fist in a rebound play that left a nasty lump in the face of the Rain or Shine rookie.

Earlier, Hodge also got entangled with Paul Lee that had team trainers attending to the former Rookie of the Year’s left knee.

“Physicality has a place in this league, but I think there are some things that will need the attention of the league because it has gotten out of control sometimes,” Guiao said after being restrained by league officials.

“I am not the only guy complaining of excessive physicality and I would be the last to complain because it is our type of game,” Guiao added. “But punching a player in the face in a rebound play is way out of the rules of this league.

“Cliff Hodge is a person who has been hurting a lot of players. His style is just he’s just out there to hurt people,” said Guiao. “The situation with Paul was also with Hodge, the last play was also a fist in the face of Almazan.

The refs just missed a lot of calls. It’s really getting out of control.”