No loser as SMB, Alaska produce epic finale to remember

MANILA, Philippines – It’s one spectacular titular series where both sides felt like winners at the end of the war.

The San Miguel Beermen came out triumphant but the Alaska Milk Aces stood as proud, toasted by almost everybody for the improbable fight they put up against their highly favored foes in the PBA Philippine Cup Finals.

The series came down to the final second and to one last shot in the do-or-die Game Seven, and the Beermen – with their star-studded, talent-laden roster and all – barely pulled through on a flubbed 3-point try by Jvee Casio at the buzzer.

San Miguel coach Leo Austria and SMB top official Robert Non acknowledged the tough, gutsy stand by the Aces, the series underdogs who found a way to push the Beermen to the limit and fought to the very end.

To many, it’s Alaska that made it an epic series, with its comeback tales to be remembered for long as much as the San Miguel escape, 80-78.

 “I was nervous. They gave me a big scare,” admitted Austria of the Alaska Game Seven act that saw the Aces wipe out a 23-point deficit and take a 74-68 lead with 4:20 left to play.

“But I kept it to myself. I tried to keep my composure as I didn’t want my players affected; I didn’t want them to be discouraged,” Austria also said.

“Luckily, our guys didn’t give up. They showed their character. Credit also to my assistant coaches. They really helped me out,” Austria added.

 Arwind Santos defined this series of comebacks and fightbacks with a 3-point shot that proved to be the biggest basket in this championship playoff.

“To have that legs to make that shot, that’s tough,” said Alaska coach Alex Compton of Santos who lived through a hellish 47 minutes of action.

“To make that shot, that’s guts. He deserves a lot of credit. That’s a huge shot in a Game Seven of an all-Filipino series,” Compton added.

Austria lived and died with Santos and Junemar Fajardo, whom he both played for almost the entire game.

“I just told them ‘guys, this is mind over matter, you have to sacrifice; this is a winner-take-all game.’ And they responded,” Austria pointed out.

As in the previous games, Alaska, on the other hand, competed with spread-out minutes and, in the end, lost on breaks of the game.

“It’s a weird mixture of pride in the way our guys fought back and tremendous disappointment in not closing it out. The disappointment is about the result than the effort,” said Compton.

“We were one possession away,” Compton added.

The Aces actually got the last possession but only in the last two seconds after the jump ball between Fajardo and Calvin Abueva.

Casio didn’t have the time to find an open spot, forced to instantly make a shot – challenged by Chris Lutz – that went way off the mark.

“I thought that we really fought back. In the second half, we obviously did the whole Alaska-let’s-get-crazy comeback. Ten-of-25 from the free-throw line sure doesn’t help,” Compton rued.

“We’re fortunate. We’re lucky,” said Austria.

As they say, it’s good to be good and lucky.

With their formidable lineup led by two MVP winners, the Beermen dominated the tournament from the elimination round to their four-game sweep of the Talk n Text Tropang Texters in the semifinals.

In a stretch-out finals series, the Beermen really needed some good stroke of luck to emerge as Philippine Cup champs for the first time in 14 long years.