Alaska wins for Yolanda victims

MANILA, Philippines — The stakes were far greater for the Alaska Aces when they entered Friday’s game against the San Mig Super Coffee Mixers. Not only did they need to bounce back from a loss, but they were also trying to be heroes for the people of Visayas ravaged by typhoon Yolanda (International codename: Haiyan.) 

“It’s Mr. Uytengsu’s birthday. Since he’s 52, for every point that we are up he’s donating P52,000,” Alaska head coach Luigi Trillo revealed after the game. “Obviously, more pressure on us to win but yung maganda doon (the good thing about it), the more that we won, the more he’s giving.”

After pooling together P40M from the entire Alaska franchise, Alaska owner Mr. Fred Uytengsu will be adding P208,000, owing to Alaska’s 84-80 victory over the San Mig Super Coffee Mixers on Friday, November 22.

It was a huge added motivation for the team who was raring to bounce back after dropping their first game.

In Davao for opening day, the Aces did not have any traction of the game right from the beginning and fell to Rain or Shine’s interior and perimeter game. They gave up 20 turnovers and were a miserable 17-of-31 from the charity line as Rain or Shine outscored them in the first three quarters en route to an opening day victory.

But Trillo owed that performance to lack of preparation on his part.

“I thought our first game, more than anybody, it was more my fault if I can’t get my guys playing,” Trillo said.

“We’re a decent team. If you come out at the half and you give them 49 points and we were down by 20, that’s me first. And obviously we were all over the court.”

For this game against San Mig Coffee, Alaska seized control early and although still gave up 19 turnovers, they forced just as many on the Mixers and matched that by shooting better from the field, 22-of-51, than their previous showing.

“I thought today yung magandang ginawa namin (what we did good) is we set the tone by taking care of the basketball,” Trillo said.

Alaska was functioning like a well-oiled machine for most of the contest with their crisp execution of plays like pick-and-rolls. Obviously, they were better prepared for this game, and it showed at the Cuneta Astrodome.

It was also a good offensive night for the big three of Sonny Thoss, Cyrus Baguio and Jayvee Casio, who combined for 52 of Alaska’s total 84 points. 

Thoss was solid from the field, shooting 61.5% on 8-of-13 field goals, and had tracked down 8 boards. While Baguio and Casio both had their fair share of moments from rainbow country with Baguio making 3 triples and Casio swishing in two, for their respective 18 and 15 points.

With the balanced performance of their big man and wingmen, Alaska was able to spread the floor well. But that didn’t stop Mixers like James Yap, Ian Sangalang, Mark Barroca and Marc Pingris from clocking in double-digit outputs.

Yap led the way with 19 points, while Sangalang is already making some noise with 15 points on 7-of-10 field goal shooting. 

Alaska was up by as much as 18 points early in the fourth until an endgame rally by San Mig cut the deficit to just 7, 82-75, following a Barroca fastbreak. But the Aces hung on and tried hard until the final buzzer to get back some of the lost points for the victims of Haiyan. 

“That’s why hanggang sa end ayaw rin namin. Not because for quotient but because sayang yung extra points na kaya namin bigay,” Trillo said. “It’s a good thing for him [Mr. Uytengsu], he’s thinking of other people na pwede natin tulungan yung kapwa natin sa Tacloban.” (That’s why until the end we didn’t want to give up. Not because for quotient but because of the extra points that we could have given. It’s a good thing for him, he’s thinking of other people that we can help our fellow countrymen in Tacloban.)

Three Mixers, PJ Simon, Joe Devance and rookie Justin Melton, were missing from the action as all of them were nursing various injuries, with the most recent one a fractured ring finger for Melton from their opening day game. 

Alaska is set to clash with Barako Bull on Sunday, while San Mig is setting up a rematch of last conference’s finals with the Petron Blaze Boosters on Wednesday’s nightcap. –Rappler.com