Alaska Crushed Bolts! On To The Semis!

Alaska Aces shutdown Meralco Bolts(87-69) in the 2nd round of Quarterfinals. Alaska advanced to the semis against Rain or Shine in a best-of-7 series! How can we forget when ROS eliminated us in the semis last conference? That mop boy thing. lol. It's payback time!



Win Factors:

• Muscle Man Takeover -Manuel chipped in 17pts 9rebs. Just one rebound short for a double-double. In an astonishing 8/11 shooting from the field! The most impressive was he's dismantling Cliff Hodge,who only had 5pts and 6rebs. Hodge usually a double-double machine. He was crushing/destroying Hodge at the post. Hodge can't contain Manuel strength for strength down there. 

• Shutdown Defense -Right after the tip-off Alaska imposed their full-court press defense. Delaying Meralco's offense. They limit Meralco to just 25 points in the 1st half. Force Meralco to commit 19 turnovers,disrupting their offensive plays. They shutdown the top 3 leading scorers of Meralco. Hodge(13.4PPG) 5pts, Gary David(11.6PPG) 8pts, and Dillinger(11.5PPG) 2pts. 

• Balance Offense -Again despite of Calvin's bad game they were shooting the lights out. Shooting 50% from the field tonight! Offense were everywhere, even the bench mobs scored 40 points! Lead by Dondon Hontiveros(17pts), who detonated 4 treys. Those outside shots of Dondon were critical because it gave Manuel to operate inside more easily. Cyrus chipped in critical 15pts too! 

Extra Factors: 

• When Bolts was making a run in the 3rd cutting the lead to just 14 points, Cyrus was to the rescue and scored critical points consecutively to ice the run of Meralco. That's what I'm saying why Cyrus should be consistent in scoring. Alaska needs firepower!
• Ping Exciminiano with 4pts 2stls in just 10mins. But what he brought to the team best was his pesky defense and energy. Those intangibles that can't be seen in stats but really helpful. Give this man more playing time!

Off:

• Back-to-back bad game for Calvin. Tonight he only tallied 5pts(1/5FG) 9rebs 3TOs. It's good that Alaska won those 2 games despite of this but Rain or Shine is no NLEX and Bolts. Alaska needs him in his Beastmode form to win a series with Rain or Shine.
• Sonny Thoss is really having a nightmare. Tonight he was scoreless with 3rebs and 4 asts! Wake up The Boss!

Source of Stats: http://pba.inquirer.net/files/2014/12/121414-Alaska-Meralco-QF.pdf