MANILA – San Miguel Beermen barged into the PBA Commissioner’s Cup Finals after beating Alaska Aces 104-99 in Game 4 of their semifinal series on Sunday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
June Mar Fajardo led Beermen with double-double 26 points and 12 rebounds. Renaldo Balkman had 23 points and 16 boards while Alex Cabagnot and Chris Ross had 18 and 17 points, respectively.
The defending champion will face the winner in the Barangay Ginebra San Miguel Kings-Rain or Shine Elasto Painters semifinal series in a best-of-seven titular showdown.
Trailing 43-44 at the half, Beermen opened the third quarter with a 10-2 scoring run from Balkman, Fajardo and Arwind Santos for a 53-46 lead. Aces rallied to get close 59-61 but inside hits from Balkman and Fajardo raised Beermen’s edge 76-69.
San Miguel pulled to an 83-73 lead early in the fourth on shots from Cabagnot and Balkman. The Milkmen charged with another rally behind Diamon Simpson to come to within 81-85.
After Beermen extended the lead 90-83 on a Ross triple, Aces countered with back-to-back treys from Simon Enciso to cut the deficit 90-94, but 5 straight points from Cabagnot upped the Beermen’s lead 100-94.
Aces had its last push on an inside hit from Vic Manuel and another triple from Enciso to reduce the gap 99-102 with 12 seconds left but two free throws from Cabagnot sealed the win for San Miguel.
Simpson finished with double-double 24 points and 21 rebounds while Manuel added 20 markers – 13 coming in the first half – for Aces, which played the series without stars Calvin Abueva and Chris Banchero./PN
