ALASKA Milk kicked off its comeback with a 89-75 wire-to-wire blasting of Barangay Ginebra in the PBA Philippine Cup at the Don Honorio Ventura State U Gym in Bacolor, Pampanga Friday night.
Idle in over two weeks, the Aces fought with fire in their belly and smothered a suddenly flat Ginebra side to notch a third win against four losses.
But with hardly a rest, the Aces return to the floor taking on the TNT Tropang Giga at 4:35 p.m. Saturday.
The Kings, meanwhile, dropped to 4-6, unable to repeat their blazing fightback from 19 points down on the way to a 94-87 win over the Phoenix Super LPG Fuel Masters Wednesday.
They got off to a lackadaisical start and failed to gain their bearing, thus, missing their chance to catch up once again with the NLEX Road Warriors (5-5) at sixth place.
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They instead dropped to eighth, just half game ahead of the Fuel Masters (4-7).
To be scheduled is Ginebra's last game in the elims against old rival Meralco.
A 10-man crew did the trick for the Aces versus the Ginebra team that badly missed the services of the injury-hit Japeth Aguilar.
Abu Tratter was among the lead contributors, coming through with 13 points, four rebounds and one steal.
Tratter said a big key was their mental focus, making special mention of the effort of their coaches to make sure they came in locked-in for the task at hand.
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"We're undermanned but we came out with the mental effort needed," said Tratter.
"It feels good to be back playing, and it feels better to be able to win," said head coach Jeff Cariaso.
"We're here for a reason. Today, we survived and tomorrow's another game," he added. (SB)
The scores:
Alaska 89 - Tratter 13, Digregorio 11, Herndon 10, Ahanmisi 10, Teng 10, Brondial 9, Marcelino 8, Banal 8, Casio 6, Adamos 4, Ilagan 0, Ebona 0, Stockton 0, Publico 0, Taha 0.
Ginebra 75 - Pringle 20, Thompson 17, Standhardinger 9, Tenprio 8, Ayaay 7, Mariano 6, Devance 4, Dillinger 2, Tolentino 2, Salado 0, Caperal 0, Enriquez 0, Aguilar 0, J. Aguilar 0, Holmqvist 0.
Quarters: 23-8, 43-25, 66-52, 89-75.
