San Mig Coffee stops Alaska 75-68

Talk about having mastery over one team and Tim Cone has one over Alaska.
Cone and his San Mig Coffee Mixers choked the Aces to just 11 third quarter points last night and coasted along to a 75-68 decision for their third straight win in the PBA Commissioner’s Cup eliminations at the Araneta Coliseum in Cubao.
It was the seventh straight victory for Cone against his former team as San Mig remained the only team that the Aces have never beaten ever since Cone took the job with the Mixers at the start of the last season.
“I don’t take any delight in beating them,” Cone said later. “But I don’t want them to be successful against us. I want them to be successful against all the other teams, but not against us.”
Denzel Bowles, the returning Best Import awardee, had 16 points and 11 rebounds and four locals chipped in double figures as the Mixers climbed to .500 for the first time in the tournament, the goal, Cone said, was the one they had before the game.
“We got back to .500 and we try to work from here,” said the Grand Slam-winning mentor with the Aces back in 1996. “It was not at all special beating Alaska (tonight). It was all about us getting back to .500.
“It would have been against anybody. We needed this win tonight,” he continued. “It just happened that we played a 5-0 team and we had to be sharp.”
Alaska saw an impressive five-game winning streak come to a halt, and the Aces dropped into a tie for the lead with idle Petron Blaze, which they battle tomorrow also at the Big Dome.
Robert Dozier finished with 16 points and 18 rebounds. He also had three blocks, but the Aces, as a whole, were horrible from the floor.
Alaska made just 19-of-54 two-point tries and was 3-of-18 from three-point zone for a 35.2% clip for the night, a shooting percentage that obviously wasn’t enough to defang such a powerhouse team like San Mig.
Starting point guard Jayvee Casio was held to just three points in 28 minutes and rookie Calvin Abueva was good for just six. Cyrus Baguio also struggled with just seven points as Alaska scored just 28 points in the first half and 39 after three quarters.
In fact, the Mixers built a 80-36 lead late in the third, playing most of the fourth period in cruise control.
Also improving to 3-3 was Meralco, which pulled off another Houdini act earlier in the night, an 89-88 decision of luckless Air21.
Chris Ross had two crucial steals that sandwiched the game-winning free throws — all inside the final 11.9 seconds — as the Bolts picked up their first winning streak of the tournament — two games — while dealing the Express a fifth straight defeat.
It was a bitter pill to swallow for the Express, who actually overhauled an 18-point third quarter deficit to even lead by three going into the final two minutes.
Michael Dunigan rallied the Express in the fourth period but also played the goat when he missed a jumper and threw an errant pass that led to one of Ross’s steals and those two free throws for the final count.
Ross made two free throws off Mark Isip with 11.9 seconds to go, leaving Air21 with a chance to steal the game. But Ross stole off Mike Cortez, preventing the Express from even taking the ball past the midcourt line and mounting a potential game-winning play.