MANILA — For the third time around in the series, the Alaska Aces overhauled a double-digit deficit to come away with an 87-76 victory over the San Miguel Beermen Sunday night in Game 6 of their PBA Philippine Cup Finals at the Smart-Araneta Coliseum.
The win tied the best-of-seven series at 3-3 with the winner-take-all Game 7 set for Wednesday.
Once again, the Aces started sluggishly as the Beermen sprinted to an 18-4 lead with Arwind Santos and Marcio Lassiter blasting away with long-range bombs.
But the Aces regrouped with the entry of Calvin Abueva who sparked a 13-5 run to cut San Miguel's lead to five, 23-17, at the end of the first quarter.
Abueva got into foul trouble, incurring his third personal foul, and had to be benched. However, the Aces continued their blazing comeback even without Abueva as Dondon Hontiveros and Vic Manuel waxed hot in the second quarter.
The Aces grabbed the lead, 26-23, en route to a 42-36 lead at halftime.
It was all Alaska in the second half as the Aces pushed their lead to a high of 17 points, 83-66, in the final quarter.
The Beermen made their last desperate run, unleashing a 10-0 blast to come to within seven, 83-76, with 1:27 left.
Sony Thoss finally doused cold water on the rallying Beermen with a clutch jumper near the baseline to push Alaska's lead back to nine, 85-76, with 42 ticks left.
Hontiveros won Player of the Game honors with a team-high 18 points, 14 of them in the first half when the Aces made their fiery comeback. Thoss and Manuel added 13 and 12 points, respectively, while serving as the vanguards of Alaska's rock-solid interior defense. Thoss and Manuel also finished with nine and five rebounds, respectively.
Cyrus Baguio added 10 markers while JVee Casio broke out of a shooting slump to chip in nine points on a 4-of-8 shooting from the field. Abueva finished with just five points as he spent most of his time on the bench due to foul trouble.
Santos and Lassiter carried the fight for San Miguel, with Santos leading his team with 24 points while Lassiter had 19. Fajardo, who had 19 points and 13 rebounds in Game Five, could only produce nine points Sunday. Alex Cabagnot also could not get going in the face of Alaska's relentless defense, finishing with just eight points.
