Painters, Aces win, keep tight race for Top 2

MANILA, Philippines - Rain or Shine and Alaska Milk carved out key wins over separate opponents last night at the Smart Araneta Coliseum, and kept the tight, three-cornered fight for the two outright Final Four berths in the Smart Bro PBA Philippine Cup elimination round.

The Elasto Painters, behind season-best games by Raymond Almazan and Jeff Chan, hurdled the Meralco Bolts, 97-87, while the Aces banked on an efficient, balanced game to negate Junmar Fajardo’s monster performance in a 103-97 win over the San Miguel Beermen.

San Miguel closed out its elims stint with a 9-2 win-loss mark.

Rain or Shine and Alaska Milk, however, have both their chance to catch up when they play their final game versus NLEX and Barako Bull, respectively, on Saturday.

In a three-way tie among ROS, SMB and Alaska, the Elasto Painters gain the playoff top seeding on a superior quotient, leaving the Aces and the Beermen to dispute second spot in a playoff.

Another likely scenario is SMB and either ROS or Alaska automatically taking the two outright semis spots.

The Aces stayed in the running for the Top Two with Sonny Thoss, Calvin Abueva, Vic Manuel and Jvee Casio joining forces to overcome Fajardo’s 43 points and 20 rebounds – only the second 40-point, 20-rebound game seen in the league after Asi Taulava logged 49 points and 21 rebounds for Talk n Text in 2003.

Almazan produced career highs of 21 points and 17 rebounds while Chan delivered a team season high of 24 markers as the Elasto Painters enhanced their own hopes for a Top Two finish early in the night.

Meralco ended a disappointing conference with a woeful 1-10 mark.

“It’s really a big game for us to keep our chances alive for the Top Two. One more game to go (versus NLEX on Saturday), and it looks a playoff game for us,” said ROS coach Yeng Guiao.

“We had to bleed for this one. We’re kind of lucky Jeff (Chan) made his shots while (Raymond) Almazan was always around the basket when we missed our shots,” Guiao also said.

Chan and Almazan really saved the day for the E-Painters, with the two combining for 19 points in the fourth quarter to highlight their exploits.

The E-Painters were nursing a slim one-point lead at 81-80 when Chan and Almazan completely took over the game, giving ROS a decisive closing run.

From 81-80, Chan and Almazan scored ROS’ next 15 points, including a triple by Chan that made it 95-87 inside the final minute.

Almazan, the third pick in the 2013 Rookie Draft behind Greg Slaughter and Ian Sangalang, improved by one both his previous career best output and career-high rebounding job.

Chan, meanwhile, went 3-of-6 from beyond the arc and 8-of-14 overall from the field as he scored the highest output by any ROS player in the season so far.

For Meralco, top gun Gary David, playing only 14:03 minutes, was held scoreless for the first time in a long while.

Before the game, he’s Meralco’s No. 1 scorer and among the league’s leading scorers, averaging 17.6 points.