For the first time in this bruising title duel, one team finally made it two wins in a row.
And the team favored to go all the way was the one that achieved that as the San Miguel Beermen hacked out a 93-88 win over the Alaska Aces last night in Game 5 of the 40th PBA Philippine Cup Best-of-Seven Finals at the Araneta Coliseum.
Following up their easy 88-70 Game 4 win, the Beermen grabbed a 3-2 series lead, moving just one game away from bagging their league-best 20th crown.
It was by far the closest match in the series with the two teams ending up tied at the half (41-all) and after three quarters of play (71-all).
The two squads had battled in 19 lead changes and nine deadlocks before the Beermen seized control in the fourth period.
Alaska took a 79-78 lead on a three-point play by Calvin Abueva but the Aces suffered a long scoring drought, failing to buy a basket for at least nine minutes while allowing the Beermen to rack up eight straight points.
Cyrus Baguio ended the Alaska drought with a three-pointer but Marcio Lassiter quickly answered with his own triple. Alaska threatened at 86-89 in the final 25.3 seconds but couldn’t convert in crucial plays while Arwind Santos and Ronald
Tubid made critical free throws to ice the San Miguel win.
June Mar Fajardo and Santos each finished with 19 points to lead the Beermen. The former added nine rebounds and five blocked shots and the latter had 13 boards and the same number of blocks.
Calvin Abueva paced Alaska with 24 points and 14 rebounds After being held scoreless for the first time in his three-year career in Game 4, Alaska point guard JVee Casio once again failed to score a single point in the crucial loss as he missed all of his eight attempts from the field.