PBA: Coca-Cola shuts wild card door on Red Bull

MANILA, Philippines – Coca-Cola foiled Red Bull’s chances of at least earning a playoff for a wild card berth, rallying from 20 points down to pull off an 88-80 win Friday night in the KFC PBA Philippine Cup at the Ynares Center in Antipolo City. The win earned the Tigers an outright wild card berth and slamming the door shut on the Barakos’ bid of forcing a playoff for the ninth spot. The Tigers closed out the All Filipino conference with a 7-11 card. The Barakos dropped to 5-12 and will end their season against defending champion Sta. Lucia in Sunday’s first game at the Astrodome. The tournament format will have the top two teams earning outright semis berths with teams from third to fifth places getting automatic slots in the quarterfinals. Squads from sixth to ninth places will dispute the last quarterfinals spot with the 10th team being eliminated from the tournament. Coke, which played minus big men Asi Taulava and Nic Belasco, trailed for most part of the game and at one point faced a 20-point deficit midway in the second quarter. John Arigo started the Tigers’ comeback in the fourth, his three-point play in the opening minutes igniting a 19-13 exchange to tie the game for the second time, 80-80, since a 4-4 deadlock early in the game. Ronjay Buenafe scored his 12th point in the game burying a three-pointer that tied the count at 80-80, 3:23 to go in the match. Forty-two seconds later, he drained the marginal basket that gave Coke an 82-80 lead that they never relinquished. Arigo scored a conference-high 31 points behind a 13-of-20 shooting from the floor, including 4-of-6 beyond the arc. He also had eight rebounds in 31 minutes of action. Buenafe finished with 14 points while Mark Telan filled in the void left by Taulava and Belasco tallying 10 markers, 14 rebounds and six assists. Cyrus Baguio scored 15 points to lead four other Barakos that turned in 12 markers or more. He also had five rebounds, three assists and three steals. Leo Najorda added 14 points while Jeff Chan, who nearly played the hero’s role but missed on his three-point try at the buzzer, chipped in 13 markers. Mark Hrabak shot 4-of-9 from beyond the arc to finish with 12 points while big man Carlo Sharma submitted 12 markers and grabbed 10 rebounds. – GMANews.TV