Ali hits new peak — all-time shooting clip

Ali Peek reached new peak in his PBA career.

Peek dished out an all-time best perfect field-goal shooting performance last night, and the Coca-Cola Tigers made it two in a row in the Philippine Cup with an 81-69 thrashing of the Alaska Milk Aces at the Araneta Coliseum.

The 6-foot-4 Fil-Am behemoth, the second best field-goal shooter in the league last season, went 12-of-12 from the field against his former team, improving the previous league best of 11-of-11 clip he himself made while still playing for Alaska Milk back in 2001.

"He’s our best field-goal shooter and among the best in the league. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that we have to put the ball in his hands," said Coca-Cola coach Binky Favis.

"I wasn’t really thinking about it (the record) and I’m just glad we won the game," added Peek, who finished with a game-high 27 points as he also canned in three charities.

"I have some good years with Alaska. But every time I step out on the court against them, I just wanna kill them. I’m sure they wanna kill me, too. But that’s just the competitive spirit we both have," said Peek.

Peek also logged in five rebounds, two assists and one block in 32 minutes of action. He took a rest for good with a little over four minutes left to play.

The entire Coca-Cola team hit 43.4 percent from the field as the Tigers gained the early solo lead in the tourney with two straight wins following a 21-point rout of the Air21 Express on Sunday.

The Aces just couldn’t get their rhythm and suffered their first loss in the tourney after winning their first match against the San Miguel Beermen, 103-90, also Sunday."The way the guys defended is commendable. But we’re also a bit lucky we caught Alaska on an off-night. Their guys usually scoring heavily struggled in this game," said Favis.

The Aces came out flat and even went without a single point in an eight-minute stretch bridging the first two quarters, allowing Peek and the Tigers to break the game open early.

Peek nearly outscored the entire Alaska team, 12-14, in the first period and added two more field-goal baskets and a charity in the second period as the Tigers erected a 47-22 margin at the half.

It was an all-Coke show up to the finish.