Phone Pals ring a bell in Hong Kong

HONG KONG — For the Talk n Text Phone Pals, this former British Crown Colony seemed to be home away from home.

The Phone Pals made a good show for a good weekend crowd of mostly overseas Filipino workers at the Queen Elizabeth Stadium here, walloping the Purefoods Chunkee Giants, 88-66, for their first win in the Gran Matador Brandy PBA Philippine Cup.

The two teams, which figured in the first PBA official out-of-the-country game made possible by PLDT Global, return to Manila today both carrying a 1-2 win-loss card.

"We’re really happy we played well, coming up with a good game to entertain our Hong Kong friends even for just one day," said Talk n Text coach Derrick Pumaren.

"This team needs this win badly for confidence-boosting. All of a sudden, we had second thoughts on whether we can compete. We needed to get the monkey off our back," Pumaren also said.

Back at the Araneta Coliseum, Coca- Cola continued to flourish in the early going of this tournament as it held off San Miguel Beer, 75-72, to remain the only unbeaten team with four victories.

John Arigo fired 16 points while Dale Singson scored five of his 13 points in the fourth quarter to help stave off the Beermen rally.

San Miguel dropped to 2-2.

The Phone Pals got off to a strong start and finished even stronger as they posted their very first win under Pumaren who took over from coach Joel Banal at the end of the recent Fiesta Cup.

Willie Miller rattled in five three-pointers and finished with a game-high 28 points with Harvey Carey, Jimmy Alapag and Asi Taulava all adding no less than 10 points each as the Phone Pals made it 3-0 versus the Giants in their head-on duels this season.

"Kontrapelo siguro kami ng Purefoods. But we really gave it our best to dish out a good game for our kababayans here," said Miller, easily the game’s best player, who highlighted his exploits with a barrage of triples to fuel their key run late in the first quarter.

Miller fired four treys coming off the bench as the Phone Pals broke the game open, 30-14, and never looked back for their first win in the all-Filipino tourney following back-to-back defeats at the hands of the Barangay Ginebra Kings and the Air21 Express.

"We played for the entire 48 minutes this time. Against Air21, we played good defense only in the first three quarters," said Pumaren, recalling their sorry loss to the Express.

"Hopefully, we pick up from here because we have a tough week ahead of us. We play Alaska Friday then Coca-Cola Sunday," added Pumaren.

Kerby Raymundo came up with a huge double-double game with 24 points and 18 rebounds but hardly got the needed support from his team.

The 6-foot-6 slotman bucked double-teaming defense at the posts for clutch baskets, rallying the Giants to within three at 49-52 midway through the third quarter.

Miller, however, went to work again, canning two charities and firing another three-pointer in a decisive 12-to-nothing run that had the Phone Pals pulling away for good at 64-49.

With Miller riding the bench at the start, Carvey did most of the damage on the Giants, scoring eight straight points in a run that gave the Phone Pals an early huge margin at 16-4.

The Giants actually enjoyed the lead just once at 4-3 on a floating shot by James Yap, who‚s easily the most favorite player among Filipino cage fans here.