San Miguel Beer, meanwhile, goes for a commanding 3-1 lead against Purefoods in their own side of the best-of-seven Final Four confrontation.
The Aces survived a fourth-quarter meltdown last Sunday, salvaging a 91-88 victory over the Gin Kings to move into the threshold of a return stint in the All-Filipino finale.
A team with proud history, the Aces go all out for another historic feat – a sweep of the Gin Kings at 7:30 tonight.
Alaska coach Tim Cone, however, is convinced it will be tough to beat Ginebra four-in-row.
“Just how many 4-0 win has been made? That’s how hard winning Game Four is,” said Cone.
Curiously, Ginebra was the last team to score a 4-0 sweep in a best-of-seven series, essaying the victory against Red Bull in the 2008 Fiesta Conference semifinals.
Guest squad Northern Consolidated Cement was the first to do the trick versus Manila Beer in the 1985 Reinforced Conference title series, then the Tony Harris-reinforced Swift Mighty Meaty team duplicated the feat against Seven-Up in the 1992 Third Conference finale.
“We still have to be cautious. How many slips did we have?” said Cone.
“I’ve been in the business for 20 years and I’ve seen things happen. We’d been up 3-1 against Purefoods in the 2006 all-Filipino semis and we ended up losing,” Cone said.
“Hopefully, I’ll be smart enough to communicate with the guys that this is not safe at all. Maybe it’s safe against other teams but not against Ginebra as evident in Game Three,” Cone said.
The Aces nearly squandered a 23-point lead last Sunday, barely pulling through with Reynel Hugnatan coming up with one big defensive rebound and a charity then Ginebra’s Mark Caguioa missing a potential game-tying three-pointer in the dying seconds.
“We should know better. Ginebra never quits,” Cone said.
Ginebra coach Jong Uichico said they will come out focused on Game Four. Never mind if no team has ever come back from a 0-3 deficit.
The fourth game of the San Miguel-Purefoods series is also expected to go down-to-the-wire.
“We’ll be all business. We’ve learned our lesson (in Game Two). We must not commit the same mistake again,” said San Miguel coach Siot Tanquingcen.
“We’ve bounced back from a humbling defeat in Game One. We’ll try to duplicate our efforts in Game Two as we look for a two-game all to reduce our series to a best-of-three affair,” said Purefoods coach Ryan Gregorio.
Source: Nelson Beltran | Philstar.com
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