MANILA: San Mig Coffee just took another step closer to PBA immortality.

With its bench contributing heavily, the Grand Slam-seeking Mixers on Tuesday night rallied from as large as 16 points down in the first half to pip San Miguel Beer, 97-90 at the Araneta Coliseum in Cubao and make the Final Four of the Governors’ Cup.

That means that the Mixers are just six more wins away from becoming just the fifth team to complete a Triple Crown sweep, which would be the first in the last 18 years.

Marqus Blakely and Justin Melton fired up the San Mig offense in the second half and the defense clogged the lanes up hard for June Mar Fajardo as the Mixers sealed a return playoff clash with Talk 'N Text for a seat in the Finals.

The Tropang Texters, who lost in four games to the Mixers in the Commissioner’s Cup Finals just a month ago, also dusted off its quarterfinal foe, scoring a 99-84 decision of Barako Bull earlier in the night.

KG Canaleta tossed in 25 points built around six triples coming off the bench, and Paul Harris had 24 and 13 rebounds as the Texters broke away late in the third quarter to win pulling away.

Their semifinal series is set over five games and it could start as early as Thursday depending on the two quarterfinal matchups scheduled on Wednesday.

Rain or Shine, the No. 2 seed, and No. 3 Alaska battle Air21 and Barangay Ginebra, respectively, with the Elasto Painters and the Aces needing to win just once to seal a separate best-of-five series.

Should any of the lower-ranked teams manage to win on Wednesday, the playoffs will take a break on Thursday with the Final Four to start with the Talk 'N Text-San Mig Coffee series on Saturday.

After winning their game scheduled earlier in the day, Talk 'N Text coach Norman Black said that he doesn’t have a preference for a foe, as either San Mig or San Miguel would be very tough.

“No matter who will play (in the semifinals), it will be a tough series,” Talk 'N Text coach Norman Black said. “I don’t really care (who we play), it doesn’t really matter to me, to be quite honest.”

Canaleta played his best game ever since being acquired by the Texters in a trade with Air21 as his timely outside sniping opened up the Barako Bull defense.

Jason Castro scored 16 points and Ranidel de Ocampo added 14, 10 rebounds and seven assists for the Texters, the elimination round topnotcher for the second straight conference.

San Mig trailed big in the first half and slowly crept back into the contest late in the second period also behind Blakely and Melton, the rookie point guard who owns a 44-inch vertical leap.

Joe Devance was also big, shooting 14 points for the night while helping the Mixers take Fajardo out of his sweet spot in the shaded lane.

Five straight points by Blakely, capped by a three-point play off Reggie Williams with 4:04 left had the Mixers scooting to an 86-81 lead. San Mig was never threatened from there.