But Alaska would have none of that as the Aces rained on the Hotshots’ parade with a 93-73 beatdown in the 2015 PBA Philippine Cup Wednesday night at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Calvin Abueva led Alaska with 21 points on 8-of-13 shooting from the field as his energy seemingly rubbed off to his teammates.
“I liked the energy of our players,” said Alaska head coach Alex Compton. “Purefoods is a great team but let’s face it, the number one energy guy in the PBA Marc Pingris wasn’t there. He’s a big factor.”
“Since he wasn’t there some of our bigs were able to take advantage of us.”
Pingris sat on the bench in street clothes. He was given time by his head coach Tim Cone to rest for three weeks after coming off a stint for Gilas Pilipinas in the Fiba World Cup last August and Asian Games the next month.
The Aces pulled away from a 16-all deadlock thanks to a big second quarter, where they outscored the Mixers, 27-13, and just took off from there.
Vic Manuel and RJ Jazul added 11 points apiece while Sonny Thoss and JVee Casio chipped in with nine each. Thoss also hauled down 13 rebounds
James Yap topscored for Purefoods, formerly San Mig Coffee, with 16 points, 14 coming in the first half.
Big man Ian Sangalang’s right knee buckled after putting his entire weight on it when he landed coming off a rebound play. He grimaced in pain while holding his knee and had to limp out of the court at the 4:16 mark of the third quarter and did not return.
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