MANILA: San Mig Coffee hurdled the final obstacle towards a shot at a coveted Grand Slam, claiming the scalp of a team that will — should the Mixers succeed — go down as one the Mixers conquered three times in the playoffs this season.

And this one also came in the same hard-earned manner as the previous two.

“Our dream is still alive,” San Mig coach Tim Cone blurted out, moments after a tightrope 93-87 decision of Talk 'N Text in the rubber match of their Final Four series in the PBA Governors’ Cup before close to 13,000 screaming souls at the Araneta Coliseum in Cubao.

The Mixers showed that they really wanted it, playing at a break-neck pace the entire 48 minutes and using a critical spurt bridging the final two quarters to build leads of as large as 14 points that cushioned a swashbuckling finishing kick by the Tropang Texters anchored on import Paul Harris.

A 16-5 run that started late in the third had the Mixers opening up a 69-55 lead from 53-50, which sent Talk 'N Text's experienced players into a harried mode that resulted in a lot of poor shot selections.

San Mig bundled out Talk ‘N Text for the third time this season, doing it first, 2-1 in the quarterfinals of the Philippine Cup, before winning the Commissioner’s Cup in four games less than two months ago.

Cone got contributions from a lot of men when the game hung in the balance and Joe Devance completed the first triple-double of his career with 11 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists.

James Yap, Marc Barroca and Marqus Blakely were big offensively down the stretch, hitting the shots that told as they kept the Tropang Texters at bay even with Harris shooting Talk 'N Text’s final 18 points inside the last 2:39.

“We had to go through an incredible team to do it,” Cone continued as he heaped praise on Talk 'N Text and its coach, fellow former Grand Slam winner, Norman Black. “It came to this one (Game 5) and frankly, I don’t know how we won it.”

The Mixers won it after Yap finished with 25 points, Blakely 21 and Barroca 17 while playing some of the best defense in the conference that forced the Texters to take the lower percentage outside shots more often than not for most of the night.

Yap hit five straight points in a 36-second span late in the fourth that had San Mig rebuilding a 14-point bubble, 83-69, before Harris came up with his one-man show and brought the Texters to within four points twice.

Harris finished with 40 points and 14 rebounds and the San Mig defense shut down his support cast with only Ranidel de Ocampo and Jason Castro finishing in twin digits with a combined 24 points.

Forced to play outside, Talk 'N Text put up a total of 38 triple attempts and converted on just 11, and the Texters aided their doom by making just 6-of-17 free throws, with seven of those misses coming in the fourth period.

The last four of those three-point conversions — three of them by Harris in that late tear — came inside the final 3:11 of the fourth. Otherwise, the Texters were throwing mostly bricks from the outside for most of the game.

Up next for the Mixers would be either Rain or Shine or Alaska, which will play their KO match Saturday at 5 p.m. also at the Big Dome in Cubao.

The Elasto Painters forged this do-or-die game with a 123-121 overtime victory on Thursday night but there will be no team with momentum going into the crucial contest.

“For about 3-1/2 quarters we were pretty good, but the last five minutes, we were pretty lousy,” Cone said, referring to the comeback of the Texters. “We have one more step to go. This is truly amazing that we are even here.”

San Mig made the Finals for the 27th time in the history of their franchise, and Cone the 29th, as he earned a shot at a second Grand Slam — which no coach has ever done before.

Cone also has won 17 titles and is the winningest bench tactician of all time.