Alaska's Robert Dozier goes up against Petron's Rodney White (R) and Jun Mar Fajardo as Jay Washington and Marcio Lassiter (L) look on in Wednesday's PBA action at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Manila. Jay R. Gotera Saudi Gazette
MANILA — With Petron having a lemon of an import, Wednesday night's main game looked more like a picnic for Robert Dozier and the rest of the Alaska Aces. The Aces frolicked freely in the paint, making mincemeat of the Petron Blaze Boosters' defense, to hack out an emphatic 92-84 victory in the PBA Commissioner's Cup at the Smart Araneta Coliseum. Dozier led all scorers with 32 points on 10-of-15 shooting from the field on top of 18 rebounds as he put to shame Petron's replacement import Rodney White. In his second game for Petron, the import who replaced the banned Renaldo Balkman more than a week ago had another miserable night, coughing a measly two points on 1-of-9 shooting and just seven rebounds in 21 minutes of play. With White looking more like a liability than an asset on the court, Petron head coach Olsen Racela opted to go all-Filipino in the final minutes. The win propelled Alaska back to sole leadership of the pack with an 8-3 win-loss card, half a game ahead of idle Rain or Shine (7-3). The Aces won despite missing the services of two injured starters – Sonny Thoss (sore back) and JVee Casio (kneecap injury). Rookie Raffy Reyes, Cyrus Baguio, and Dondon Hontiveros added 11 points each for the Aces who won their fourth straight win against the Boosters going back to the last Philippine Cup. The Boosters suffered their second straight loss but remained at solo third place in the standings with a 6-4 mark. With no reliable import to turn to, the local Boosters played their hearts out but not enough to turn the tables on the Aces. Marcio Lassiter led Petron with 24 points, Jay Washington had 22 while Alex Cabagnot and Jun Mar Fajardo had 11 and 10 respectively. Although he had 13 rebounds, Arwind Santos was not much of a factor in offense, scoring only seven points on 3-of-10 shooting. The Boosters actually controlled the boards, 50-41, despite having a dud of an import as they took advantage of an Alaska squad without Thoss, the Aces' starting center. Unfortunately, the Boosters were not able to convert the extra rebounds into points. So unforgiving was the Alaska defense that the Boosters failed to score a single basket in the last 90 seconds of the game when they had all the chances to overtake the Aces. In the first game of the Wednesday double-header, Mac Cardona finally ended his scoring slump, pouring 30 points to help lead the Meralco Bolts to a 103-92 mangling of the luckless GlobalPort Batang Pier. Import Eric Dawson exploded for 37 points and 13 rebounds, scoring 14 of his team's 32 points in the fourth quarter. The victory snapped the Bolts' two-game losing streak and pushed Meralco into a five-way tie for fourth to eighth places together with Air 21, Barangay Ginebra San Miguel, San Mig Coffee, and Talk ‘N Text, all with an even 5-5 mark. The Batang Pier suffered their eighth straight loss as they remained stuck at the bottom of the standings with a 2-9 card. Gary David led GlobalPort with 29 points while new import Sylvester Morgan dished out 22., Sol Mercado and Richard Yee chipped in 11 and 10 points respectively.
