The Alaska Aces are the 2013 PBA Commisioner's Cup Champions

The Alaska Aces swept Barangay Ginebra in the recently concluded best of five Commisioner's Cup Finals. The aces won game 3 with a score of 104 - 80. Rob Dozier was heralded as the Best Import of the Conference. But Dozier credited his teammates for the award. And rightly so, since for Alaska, the chemistry was evident between the team members the entire conference where the Aces stayed on top of the Conference standings.

Notable performances from the Aces players can be attributed to Calvin Abueva, Sonny Thoss, and JVee Casio. Abueva, despite being subjected to "The Jordan Rules" - tough physical defense - made famous by the Detroit Pistons, was undeterred in contributing well so that the team might finish off Barangay Ginebra. He relentlessly attacked the basket and showed no fear despite the opponents intentions of making him "hit the deck" and dive to the floor at every drive. Truly, man is fearless when he is young. But I hope Abueva takes care of his health since Alaska needs to have someone like him to stay competitive in the future.

Thoss was unstoppable in the second half and had his way under the basket. Cyrus Baguio and Don Don Hontiveros also contributed in terms of hustle and intangibles.

But Casio was the leader of this team, and made sure that the team was always composed and unrattled. He even caused a pull-up 3-point jumper that created a 4-point play in the 4th quarter. This led to Alaska's double digit lead and the Aces haven't looked back since that time.

Kudos to Coach Luigi Trillio who finally has a win under his belt. He had some semblance of Tim Cone when he was asking for the Technical foul after Cyrus Baguio was hacked. The commentators have also mentioned that aside from the new players - and trading LA Tenorio for JVee Casio, the familiarity of the players with the coaching staff and system allowed this team to quickly gel together despite being young and only playing with each other for a short time.

Once again, congrats to the Alaska Aces, winners of the 2013 Commisioner's Cup.