MANILA: Jong Uichico tried so hard to play down the sidelight to the Talk 'N Text-Barangay Ginebra KO match on Tuesday night.

But the way his Tropang Texters played with so much mastery of the Gin Kings certainly made Uichico hard to believe.

Talk 'N Text ran the beefier, taller Gin Kings to the ground, scoring an 83-67 victory that put the Tropang Texters in the Final Four of the PBA Philippine Cup at the expense of Uichico’s former team.

The Texters’ defense did its job the entire night, holding Ginebra’s big man to paltry numbers by gang-defending every time the ball went to the hands of the 7-foot Greg Slaughter and the 6-foot-9 Japeth Aguilar in the paint.

“Regardless of whether it was Ginebra or not, we needed that game to get to the semis,” Uichico told reporters shortly afterwards. “It was just a game we needed to win, that’s all.”

Uichico was being pressed to give a strong statement because of the fact that it was at Ginebra where he had his last head coaching stint. And it was also at Ginebra where he resigned after problems with management.

Starting the 2012 season, Uichico moved back to assistant and found a job at Meralco under Ryan Gregorio before being called upon to take the head coaching job for the Texters vice Norman Black.

Up next for the Texters is another big squad in tournament No. 1 San Miguel Beer and reigning MVP June Mar Fajardo. Their best-of-seven series for a slot in the championship playoffs starts Friday.

Rain or Shine and Alaska open up Final Four action on Thursday with Game 1 of their separate race-to-four also at the fabled Big Dome floor in Cubao at 7 p.m.

Jason Castro has come up big for the Texters in this conference, shooting 23 points that went with five rebounds aside from quarterbacking the Talk 'N Text offense to great effect and providing all sorts of match-up problems for the Ginebra defense.

Ginebra, when its twin and sometimes triple tower combinations did not work, tried playing small, and Castro made sure that he made the defense pay by slicing to the basket against much smaller defenses.

Ranidel de Ocampo tossed in 17 points and rookie Matt Ganuelas-Rosser, a reedy hardworker, shot 13 and got the better of the high-leaping Aguilar in several instances.

Rosser, who stands no taller than 6-foot-5, smothered at least three Aguilar attempts and finished with four blocks for the night. Talk 'N Text tallied 10 against the tallest team in the league.

The game was tight the whole night, save for the fourth quarter where Talk 'N Text held the Kings to just nine points – zilch in the final 4:11.

Another rookie, point guard Kevin Alas, scored four straight points to open up the Talk ‘N Text offense in the fourth for 69-60, before another four straight points, this time coming from De Ocampo, opened up a 75-66 lead.

The last Ginebra score came at the 4:11 mark when Aguilar split his charities off De Ocampo for 67-75, only for Ganuelas-Rosser to complete a three-point play off Joseph Yeo for 78-67.

LA Tenorio and Aguilar committed an error each in the next two Ginebra offensives that ran the team’s total to 15 for the game, and the Texters capitalized each time to put the game away.

So controlled was Ginebra’s frontline rotation that no big man scored in twin digits for coach Jeffrey Cariaso. Tenorio finished with 15 and Yeo 10 for the Kings, who also did not get a lot from former MVP Mark Caguioa, who finished with just eight.