RICO Maierhofer and Marc Pingris dominated the offensive boards in the endgame, helping B-MEG Derby Ace notch a series-tying 98-93 win over Talk ‘N Text Sunday in the PBA Philippine Cup semifinals at the jampacked Araneta Coliseum.
James Yap scored a game-high 26 points and KG Canaleta notched his first double-double in two seasons with 19 points and 13 rebounds.
But it was the younger pair coming up with the clutch points in the stretch that enabled Derby Ace to withstand a gritty comeback by the Tropang Texters from as much as 21 points down and level the best-of-seven series at two games apiece.
“Those guys, Ping and Rico, are very good offensive rebounders and they just did their roles,”
said Llamados head coach Jorge Gallent.
“Iyon naman talaga ang role ko, more on offensive rebounding. Kaya when coach told me to “Do your thing, grab those rebounds,’ tumatak sa isip ko,” related Maierhofer, who wound up with 10 points and seven rebounds, six off the offensive glass. Last year’s Rookie of the Year scored seven and grabbed five offensive boards in the fourth period alone.
Pingris wound up with his own first double-double for the season with 13 and 11. PJ Simon had 16 points.
For Gallent, it was a matter of his players learning well from TNT’s double-teaming defense in a
78-92 massacre last Friday.
“It’s good we made the adjustments. It resulted in a win,” he stated.
For Yap, it was total team effort.
“Nakapag-adjust kami at lahat nag-step up, nagtutulungan talaga, said the man limited to just
nine points in Game 3. “Ngayon, me chance pang lumamang sa kanila sa series.”
The franchise formerly known as Purefoods is currently tied with Crispa for most number of
All-Filipino crowns with five, with the Redmanizers winning its last in 1984, when there were two
import-less tourneys. No team has retained its all-Filipino championship since Great Taste in 1985.
Gallent just wants his team to notch the series’ first back-to-back wins and they could do that
on Wednesday.
“It’s gonna be very hard (to win two straight), but what’s important is that we got it down
to a best-of-three. Winning the first game of a best-of-three is always very important, but we just have to stick together, play as a team.
“It’s gonna be hard, but possible.”
Jimmy Alapag had 22 points and Ali Peek 17 and 10 rebounds, yet Talk 'N Text head coach Chot Reyes pointed out it’s simply a matter of his team not digging itself such a deep hole that it found itself after falling behind by 45-66, 5:19 left in the third period. He blamed it all on most of his frontliners’ predominantly lackluster plays, putting to naught their 36-point fourth quarter.
“Our big men were missing,” he stated. “We couldn’t compete if we have absent players.
That’s why we lose ball games. “Gotta have everybody showing up.”
That is the main reason, Reyes added, why Derby Ace dominated the boards in the endgame.
“We couldn’t get our big guys in because they were playing poorly. So we opted for a small
lineup and we paid the price,” he said.
Maierhofer turned two James Yap misses into putbacks and Pingris had a followup of his own,
Still, the Tropang Texters managed to trim the deficit to just 78-81 and were still within 89-92
coming into the game’s final 63 seconds.
That was when Maierhofer followed up Yap’s miss for the third time in the period and Simon scored on a fastbreak after Ryan Reyes missed a triple try, practically icing it all up 98-90, only 8.8 ticks left.
Surprisingly, TNT won the battle of the boards 53-49 and Derby Ace struggled from the stripes,
missing 16 of 36 free throw tries.
The Llamados, however, had more triples with eight and the Tropang Texters made only four of their five in the last period.
The scores:
B-Meg Derby Ace 98 - Yap J. 26, Canaleta 19, Simon 16, Pingris 13, Maierhofer 10, Allado 8,
Villanueva 5, Timberlake 1, Yap R. 0.
Talk ‘N Text 93 - Alapag 22, Peek 17, Fonacier 15, Castro 11, Reyes 11, Williams 6, Aban 5, Carey 3, De Ocampo 2, Dillinger 1, Alvarez 0.
Quarterscores: 20-15, 48-35, 76-57, 98-93
