Aces outlast Dragons, get out of cellar

Alaska Milk got some relief yesterday swapping places at the cellar with erstwhile joint eighth placer Welcoat Paints as the Aces withstood the Dragons, 97-91, in overtime in the Talk n Text PBA Philippine Cup at the Araneta Coliseum.

Nic Belasco dished out a double-double job with 23 points and 14 rebounds, and came through with clutch plays in the extra period to eventually bail Alaska out of trouble against a scrappy Welcoat team which just wouldn’t give up.

The Aces notched their third win in 10 games but not after squandering a pair of 20-point margins in the second quarter and what had looked like a safe five-point cushion at 85-80 in the last 28 seconds of regulation play.

Belasco canned in a free throw, intercepted a throw-in by Joey Mente and scored on a layup in the final nine seconds of overtime to scuttle Welcoat’s bid in the end.

Despite the win, Alaska coach Tim Cone was a picture of total frustration in attending the post-game interview.

"We’re having a hard time closing out. It’s very difficult when you don’t have confidence. We practice hard, but come game time, we just can’t close out. We can’t hold on to a big lead. These are the struggles we’re going through right now,"said Cone.

"But at 2-7, we’ll take any win we can get. We’ve taken one little step in a ladder and we hope to build on this. We need to get a lot more rungs up to be competitive," Cone added.

At least with the victory, Cone and his Aces got out of the cellar for the first time in a long while, catching up with the Coca-Cola Tigers at eighth place. The Dragons took the Aces’ spot as they suffered their eighth loss against three wins.

The Aces got off to a strong start but lapsed into crucial turnovers that allowed the Dragons to get back into the fight in the fourth quarter.