Bouncing back from a humbling Game 3 rout, the Alaska Aces regained their poise to hack out a 90-83 win against the San Miguel Beermen Friday night at the Cuneta Astrodome to take a 3-1 lead in the PBA Fiesta Conference Finals. The Aces could win their 13th PBA crown with another win this Sunday. San Miguel faces a daunting task since only one team in the PBA's 35-year history – Barangay Ginebra – managed to crawl back from a 3-1 Finals deficit to win the championship. That was in 1991 when Ginebra came from behind to beat Shell in the First Conference. LA Tenorio led Alaska with 21 points and 10 rebounds. Diamon Simpson was held to 14 points but he made up for this by grabbing 18 rebounds. Cyrus Baguio added 15. Gabe Freeman topscored for San Miguel with 28 points and 17 rebounds. Arwind Santos chipped in 15 markers while Danny Ildefonso had 11. Jay Washington suffered an off-night and was held to just 5 points on a miserable 2-of-12 shooting from the field. Down 66-67 in the fourth quarter, the Aces unleashed a 16-5 run to take an 82-72 lead in the final three minutes. Alaska head coach Tim Cone called Game 4 “one of the toughest games I was involved in.” He expressed confidence that his squad can wrap up the championship this Sunday. San Miguel head coach Siot Tanquingcen refused concede though. “I don't think it's over. It's not an ideal situation, but I know that we're playing for something here,” he said. Meanwhile, Filipinos whooped it up after the Smart-Gilas national squad downed Iran, 79-67, Friday in the quarterfinals of the FIBA Asia Stankovic Cup in Beirut, Lebanon. It was the third win in five games for the Philippine team in the tough eight-nation Asian tournament. Smart-Gilas earlier defeated Syria and Jordan while losing to Lebanon and Qatar in the classification round. With the win, Smart-Gilas now faces the winner of the Lebanon-Kazakhstan match in the semifinals. Marnel Baracel topscored for the Philippines with 18 points. But it was the backcourt pair of JV Casio and Chris Tiu that spelled victory for Smart-Gilas in the homestretch as the two combined for 21 points in the pivotal fourth quarter. Tiu finished with 15 points while Casio had 14. PBA reinforcement Asi Taulava chipped in 10 points.
