Bracing themselves up for a tough battle against the Phone Pals last night, the Aces, however, were only surprised as they went on a breeze, hacking out a 90-73 rout to sustain their three-game romp in the Gran Matador PBA Fiesta Conference at the Araneta Coliseum.
"I was surprised we beat them by 17. You beat a team like Talk n Text and you start to feel things are coming together for you," said Cone as his Aces further boosted their stock with a fifth win against a single loss.
However, Cone cautioned his team not to consider their lopsided victory a big deal, believing they only caught Talk n Text on its off-night. " We played well and they had their off-night. They missed bunch of gimmes and that deflated their spirit while boosting ours," Cone said.
But the Phone Pals did struggle from the field and at the stripe as they suffered their second loss against four wins to slide down to third place in the team standings.
Only Vic Pablo, back in action after sitting out their last four games due to a calf muscle, had a respectable shooting among the Phone Pals, hitting at a 66-percent clip and finishing with 13 points. The whole Talk n Text squad shot 34.5 percent from the field and 66.7 percent from the foul line.
The Alaska starters of Mike Cortez, Ali Peek, Galen Young, Brandon Cablay and Don Allado outscored their Talk n Text counterparts of Pablo, Randy Holcomb, Asi Taulava, Jimmy Alapag and Bong Ravena, 81-59, and the Alaska backcourt outpointed the Talk n Text guards, 35-8.
San Miguel Beer outmanuevered Purefoods in the second half and stayed unscathed in six games with a 94-89 win in the nightcap. The Hotdogs fell to 2-4.
Cortez and Cablay showed up Alapag and Willie Miller curiously just after the Talk n Text guards displayed great games versus Sta. Lucia Realty last Wednesday. Cortez and Cablay combined for 35 points as against Alapag’s and Miller’s eight-point output.
The Alaska frontcourt had its contribution with Peek holding his ground against Taulava, churning out 18 points, 13 rebounds, four assists and three blocks in a solid all-round game.
Peek sent the Alaska crowd up on their feet late in the fourth quarter on a thunderous jam in front of Holcomb that gave the Aces a 21-point speard at 85-64.
The Phone Pals were in the game only in first half, figuring in two deadlocks and five lead changes. They trailed by nine, 40-49, at the half.