MANILA – San Miguel Beermen moved closer to the 2018 PBA Commissioner’s Cup finals after a 105-94 win over Alaska Aces in Game 2 of their best-of-five semifinal series Monday night at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Renaldo Balkman led Beermen with 31 points and 10 rebounds. June Mar Fajardo added 21 points and 18 rebounds while Chris Ross and Alex Cabagnot had 16 and 14 points, respectively.
With a 2-0 series lead, the defending champion can seal its return to the finals with a victory over the depleted Aces in Game 3 Wednesday night, also at the Big Dome.
Both teams took turns with the lead late in the opening quarter until Aces charged 29-18 on hits from Simon Enciso. The edge rose to as high as 41-25 but Beermen trimmed this 41-52 at the half.
“I’m motivated to get to the finals, of course, but we got one more left. We got to get to the next one. We’ll get it through. We got to stick to the game plan. We’ll play together and go out and get a win,” Balkman said post-match.
San Miguel started strong in the third period to come to within 53-54 on three straight triples from Ross. Balkman then made consecutive points from the inside for Beermen to surge 79-74.
Aces was still hanging around early in the fourth with an 84-all deadlock when Beermen went on a huge run behind Balkman for a 94-87 lead – which grew further to as high as 105-92 on back-to-back treys from Cabagnot and Arwind Santos.
Diamon Simpson and Simon Enciso finished with 19 points apiece while Vic Manuel struggled anew with just 15 markers for Aces, which went on sans Calvin Abueva and Chris Banchero./PN
