The point guard known as the "Cool Cat" has displayed icy nerves before, but not as emphatic as last Sunday when he ably carried Alaska on his shoulders while completely outplaying a rookie bent on upstaging him.
In the end, Cortez wound up with a career-high 27 points on top of eight assists to lift the Aces to a 108-104 double overtime victory over the Sta. Lucia Realtors at the start of their PBA Fiesta Conference wildcard series at the Astrodome.
"Mike was awesome," exclaimed Alaska coach Tim Cone of Cortez stepping up big when the Aces failed to get the expected numbers from import Odell Bradley and thus were drawn to a tooth-and-nail battle.
"We were just giving him pick-and-roll plays and he was making the most out of it," Cone added. "Mike made up for most of our deficiencies tonight."
Those words from the usually discerning Cone helped the 25-year-old Fil-Am earn the nod of the PBA Press Corps as its San Mig Coffee Player of the Week. However, it was the man the Uytengsu franchise made the top pick overall in the 2003 Rookie Draft who made his selection over such other contenders as San Miguel Beer’s Danny Ildefonso, Air21’s Ren-Ren Ritualo and Ginebra’s Mark Caguioa easier. After being upstaged by SLR rookie Alex Cabagnot for majority of the first half, Cortez came to the latter stages with renewed vigor, rising to the challenge and providing the boost Bradley’s total 13 points could not.
He scattered seven of his output in the fourth quarter after Alaska has trailed by as many as 10 points and furnished nine more in the deciding extension, most of them through twisting lay-ups and off-balanced jumpers.
As extra gravy, he helped put the clamps on Cabagnot, who sank five of his first seven shots but was limited to just a 2-of-9 field shooting the rest of the way. "It was quite a show from those two out there tonight," said Cone.
"You know they are two of the best, if not the best, younger point guards in the PBA today." Unless Cabagnot comes out with a grand show of his own in the best-of-three series, Cortez has his performance last Sunday as an advantage to draw bragging rights from in their future duels.