Giants too good for Aces

source: Tito S. Talao | mb.com.ph

Tim Cone, the Alaska Aces coach, didn’t hang around long enough Wednesday night to “tip my hat” and “sing praises” to the Purefoods Giants after getting swept in the KFC-PBA Philippine Cup Finals.

He was gone from the Araneta Coliseum before Giants coach Ryan Gregorio could be hoisted by his victorious players, and was probably halfway to where he sought solace by the time Best Player of the Conference and Finals MVP James Yap was through shaking hands at the press room.

Getting shut out by a kid in front of more than 16,000 screaming fans was probably too much for the veteran Grand Slam coach to bear.

And there lies the dilemma of the Alaska Aces.

Defiant despite falling behind 0-3 in the championship series, Cone said after Game 3 Sunday that only when the series is over will he tip his hat and sing praises to Purefoods.

“But it’s not over yet,” he said.

It’s over now. And when the end finally came for the Aces, with Yap putting the finishing touches to a masterful performance and Purefoods’ relentless frontline crushing the air out of its counterpart, Cone found himself practically alone in the battle with the menacingly tall and agile Giants, especially in the title-clinching Game 4.

Willie Miller made a valiant effort to salvage Alaskan pride and stature, the Aces having come into the Final Four as a top seed and into the championship as conquerors of the Barangay Ginebra Kings in four straight games.

But two men couldn’t do it alone. And with Miller and Cone, and to some extent LA Tenorio, the only ones with the sustained courage to stand their ground against a pack of stampeding horses in Roger Yap, Marc Pingris, Rafi Reavis, KG Canaleta, Kerby Raymundo, and rookie Rico Maierhofer, the Aces inevitably got run over.

“It was really their size,” Cone told the Bulletin’s Waylon Galvez the day after.

“I think we did a good job on James, Roger Yap and Kerby Raymundo. But it was Pingris, Reavis, KG (Canaleta), and even Maierhofer… it was their size and quickness. They disrupted us both on offense and defense,” Cone said.

“They outplayed us in the series. We had our chances to win games. But they came in to the series at a high level especially defensively. They just gained momentum. But the most impressive thing is that they didn’t let off the pedal for a moment. They didn’t give us a chance.”

Gregorio, who vowed not to give Alaska an ounce of air to breath after taking a 3-0 lead, pointed to the Giants’ indomitable spirit, something the Aces radiated when they still had Johnny Abarrientos, Jojo Lastimosa, Bong Hawkins, Poch Juinio and a much younger Jeffrey Cariaso in the lineup, as a key factor in their triumph.

“Our will and determination to survive can't be described in words,” Gregorio said. “We're supposed to be tired, the inferior team. But again that's what prayers can do. Yes, we're tired on the court, we're tired in practice, but we prayed hard and those prayers were answered.”

Coming in through the backdoor, the Giants needed five games to dispose off tenacious Rain or Shine in the quarterfinals before blasting to smithereens No. 2 seed San Miguel Beer in the semifinals.

“This is really close to impossible, but we did it,” he said. “So that’s what makes this conference more memorable for us. It can be a preview of what life can be. You start slow, you start on the wrong foot, but you have to end the right way and that’s exactly what we did. We never gave up.”

Somewhere along the way, the Alaska Aces did.