PBA: Burger King trounces Alaska
Burger King bucked the ejection of head coach Yeng Guiao in the fourth quarter and trounced Alaska, 106-88, for its second straight win in the 2008-09 Motolite-PBA Fiesta Conference Sunday night at the Cuneta Astrodome in Pasay City.
Guiao was thrown out in the game at the 9:38 mark of the final canto when the Whoppers were holding a 78-70 lead.
The Aces threatened at 74-78 before the Whoppers unloaded a 20-3 run, led by Arwind Santos and Egay Billones, for their biggest lead of the game at 98-77, 3:13 left.
The win gave Burger King a share of third spot with Rain or Shine at 6-5 mark while ending Alaska's two-game run for a 4-7 slate.
Santos netted a personal conference-high of 31 points, 12 came in the fourth quarter, while JR Quinahan and Billones added 13 and 12 markers respectively for Burger King.
Joe Devance had 25 points to lead Alaska. Rosell Ellis had 22 points and 15 rebounds for the Aces.
Coca-Cola dismantles Barako Bull
In the first game, Coca-Cola drew huge games from James Penny, Asi Taulava and Nic Belasco in dismantling Barako Bull, 120-106, for its third win in nine games.
Penny scored a game-high 36 points in 37 minutes while Taulava and Belasco contributed 23 and 20 respectively for the Tigers who handed the Energy Boosters their fifth straight loss and go down deeper in the team standing with 2-9 mark.
Alex Cabagnot and Mark Macapagal added 16 and 15 points respectively for Coke, which for the second straight game missed the services of head coach Kenneth Duremdes because of sore eyes.
"We decided to do something new in the game. Most of the time, we tend to set up, hindi namin magamit ‘yong skills that we have so we decided to fasten the phase and use the full-court press," said assistant coach Bo Perasol.
"We just use the talent that we have and it's a good thing that it paid off," he added.
Daryan Selvy, who replaced Jeff Varem, had 30 points and 13 rebounds in his league debut but those were not enough to stop the losing woes of the Energy Boosters.
Selvy, who came from a stint in Japan, was held down to just two points in the final period after hitting 28 in the first three quarter as fatigue set in to the former Oklahoma campaigner.
"We don't even know him," Perasol said of Barako Bull's new import. "We just analyze him during warm up and obviously napagod sa huli kaya hindi na naka-deliver for them."
The Energy Boosters, also handled by assistant Ariel Vanguardia as mentor Leo Isaac was also in sick bay, were still in the game after Carlo Sharma, who netted 20 points, hit a jumper to slice the lead to 95-99, with 6:39 remaining.
But Barako went silent in the next four minutes and Coke unloaded a decisive 15-0 run to put the game out of reach, 114-95, under three minutes left.

