Real Beermen show up in Game 3, crush Alaska

The real San Miguel Beer showed up for Game 3 of the PBA Fiesta Cup Finals opposite Alaska. Defending brilliantly and scoring buckets according to their potential, the defending champion Beermen mercilessly crushed the Aces, 96-80, for their first win in the Finals of the season-ending meet at the Araneta Coliseum Wednesday night.

It only took a decisive second-quarter run for the Beermen to finally get back on track in the series and avoid going down into a deficit no team in the 35-year history of the league has ever overcome. The best-of-seven series now reads at 2-1 going into Friday’s Game 4 at the Astrodome. Two-time Best Import winner Gabe Freeman and Jay Washington spearheaded that San Miguel breakaway when it outscored Alaska, 24-4, in a six-minute span. The end result had the Beermen turning a slim two-point lead into a 46-24 spread, three minutes to go before halftime. They spent the rest of the second half repelling every Alaska comeback before coasting along the way. “We’ve finally got the monkey off our backs," said Washington, who finished with 23 points and 10 rebounds. “We went into the game with the mindset that we have nothing to lose." Freeman topscored for 24 points, 18 of them coming in the opening half, and snared 20 rebounds in a performance that was opposite to his 13-point effort in Game 2. “When you come down to games like these, you have to play to your identity, which is our defense," said San Miguel coach Siot Tanquingcen. “Defense brought us here. But we’re still down. Even if we won by big or the slimmest of margins, we’re still down. There is still no room for us to even think that we’ve done anything." The output was the highest for the Beermen in the series, and the lowest for the Aces, who were clobbered off the boards by the reigning champions, 49-29, and forced to 23 turnovers, three less than they’ve committed in Games 1 and 2 combined. “We got a real doze of reality," admitted Alaska coach Tim Cone. “We let them play to their formidable talent. Everybody was tapping us on our backs for the 2-0 lead and we fell into the trap. That was ugly." Import Diamon Simpson was held down to just 16 points and 11 rebounds, a far cry from his 28.5 point and 19 rebound averages in the first two games of the series. A basket by Freeman two minutes into the third period gave the Beermen their biggest lead of the game at 56-32, before two free throws by Larry Fonacier at the 8:24 mark of the fourth had the Aces closing to within 75-62. But the Beermen answered back with a 10-3 run, which Olsen Racela capped with a big three-pointer, to up the lead again to 85-65 with 5:58 to play. Arwind Santos added 18 points for San Miguel, which also got 10 from Danny Ildefonso and nine from Racela, who played his 900th game in 17 PBA seasons and moved into fifth in the all-time list. The veteran guard is just 18 games behind No. 4 Philip Cezar. Joe DeVance had 12 points and Baguio 11 for Alaska. Eight points were scored by Fonacier and Sonny Thoss, who played his first game in the series after suffering a second-degree sprain that sidelined him for the rest of the Aces’ semifinals series with Talk `N Text. Thoss’ first two points of the game made it 22-20, before the Beermen went berserk and poured in the points in that big second quarter breakaway. – JVP, RCJ GMANews.TV