Boosters ram Mixers, keep lead

Petron Blaze leaned on a fiery windup to roll past San Mig Coffee, 9- , and regain solo lead with a fourth straight win in the PBA Governors Cup at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City last night.

Elijah Millsap, onald Tubid, Chris Lutz and Junmar ajardo worked on a 1 -1 closing romp as the Boosters hit the midpoint of their elims stint at -1.

Millsap, Tubid and Lutz outgunned James ap and his teammates at the finish, thus handing the Mixers a third loss against a lone win.

“ ur mindset was to protect our spot on top. It’s important for us to be in the Top our going to the quarterfinals,” said Petron coach Gie Abanilla.

They’re in strong contention for the Top our, precious seedings that will enjoy twice-to-beat advantage over the next four in the quarterfinal round.

Arizona eid upstaged ach Graham and Paul Lee made his presence felt in his return from a one-game layoff as ain or Shine arrested its two-game slide, waylaying Air 1, 1 9-9 , earlier in the night.

eid sparkled with 9 points, including 1 in the last five minutes, while Lee tossed in 19 as the Elasto Painters returned to the upper rung of the standings, above the . mark with a - win-loss slate.

“This is big coming from back-to-back bad losses. It’s important because losing would have meant we would try to survive. Winning means getting back into contention for the top spot,” said ain or Shine coach eng Guiao.

“We’ve been in a shooting slump. My only advice was for the guys to keep working hard and fire away not thinking of the misses we’d incurred in previous games,” Guiao also said.

“ efensively, we did well on the import but not on the locals especially against G (Canaleta). It’s good we shot a lot better today,” Guiao added.

Graham, the PBA scoring champ last season, was held down to 1 points as the Express absorbed a third straight loss and its fourth in five games in all.

Canaleta and Mike Cortez brought Air 1 into the fight in the last quarter but the Express couldn’t keep up as eid came through with one big shot after another in the last five minutes of play.

By NELSON BELTRAN