The Alaska Aces will return to the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Finals after a blowout victory against the GlobalPort Batang Pier in Game 5 of the best-of-seven semifinals with the final score of 118-89 on Tuesday night held at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
The Aces is now the first team to reach the finals in the 2016 PBA Philippine Cup and make their 28th franchise finals appearance since joining Asia’s first professional basketball league during the year 1986.
The victory of the Aces and their entry to the All Filipino Cup Finals will be their 10th in the all-filipino conference. This is also the first back-to-back finals appearance since 1995-1996, based upon PBA head statistician Fidel Manganon III.
Point guard Chris Banchero led the Aces in scoring with double digits numbers and scored a career-high 19 points on 8-of-11 field goals to go with 5 rebounds and 3 steals, while Calvin Abueva had 14 markers and 9 boards off the bench.
Sonny Thoss chipped in 14 points as well on top of 5 rebounds, while Vic Manuel and Cyrus Baguio had 10 points apiece for the Aces, which swept the Batang Pier after dropping Game 1 of the series.
Jay Washington had a game-high 26 points on top of 7 rebounds for Globalport while guard Terrence Romeo was held to just 20 points on 5-of-12 shooting from the field.