Aces go for the kill against semis rival Ginebra

source: gmanews.tv

Up by a commanding 3-0 lead in a best-of-seven series, Alaska coach Tim Cone is still bracing for the worst. Not when you have Barangay Ginebra for a semifinals opponent.

“I’ve seen a lot of things happen in one way or another," said the long-time mentor of the Aces. “Do I feel safe with this (3-0) lead? Against any other team, yes. But against Ginebra, no."

So with a lot of urgency, the Aces go for the kill Wednesday when they try to put the final nail on the Kings’ coffin and go for a finals berth in the KFC-PBA Philippine Cup at the Araneta Coliseum.

As a sound student of Asia’s first ever play-for-pay league, Cone knows sweeping a best-of-seven series is very hard to achieve.

For the record, only three teams in the 35-year history of the PBA were able to pull off a 4-0 sweep - Northern Consolidated, as a guest team, against Manila Beer in the Finals of the 1985 Reinforced Conference; Swift against Seven-Up in the 1992 Third Conference championships; and the latest by Ginebra against Red Bull in the semifinals of the 2008-09 Fiesta Conference.

“There are only a few sweeps in the history of the league and winning Game 4 is always difficult," said Cone.

Game 3 alone didn’t come easy for the Aces.

Down by 23 points nine minutes into the final quarter, Ginebra staged a big comeback that nearly toppled Alaska’s big lead. Unfortunately, the Kings blinked, missing key shots at the free throw line and bungling potential game-tying three-point attempts in the dying seconds of a 91-88 loss.

Barangay Ginebra coach Jong Uichico still sees a slight hope as far as the Kings are concerned, having seen his team rise back from the grave in its quarterfinals series with Talk `N Text and still win after being down 0-2 in the best-of-five duel.

Meanwhile, San Miguel is eyeing to shove Purefoods on the brink of defeat when it goes for a commanding 3-1 lead in their own semifinals series.

The Beermen rebounded from their 103-84 Game 2 loss with a methodical 88-76 win in Game 3, outrebounding the Giants (50-38) and forcing Purefoods to miss 45 of its 71 attempts.

“We’ve learned our lessons. Pag nagkamali ka ng isa, ok lang. Pero pag inulit mo pa ‘yun, parang may pagkatanga ka na siguro," said Tanquingcen, referring no less to the lack of effort they had in the Game 2 defeat. - GMANews.TV

Games this Wednesday (Araneta Coliseum)
5 p.m. — San Miguel vs Purefoods
7:30 p.m. — Alaska vs Ginebra