By NOLI CORTEZ

EVEN with Purefoods missing one of its key components Red Bull still found the going extra tough last night.

Good thing luck, fueled by their stingy defense, enabled the Bulls to pull off a 97-88 overtime victory that evened up their Smart PBA Philippine Cup semifinals series at the Astrodome.

Red Bull limited Purefoods to just two points in the extra period while Celino Cruz and Kiko Adriano did the most damage on the offensive side by combining for nine of their team’s 11 points.

All those spelled the Bulls’ big comeback from a 90-99 loss in Game 3 last Friday and reduced their best-of-seven series to a race-to-two affair.

Winning coach Yeng Guiao, however, pointed out the outcome could have been starkly different had James Yap not suffered a suspected contusion on his left knee following a bad landing late in the first quarter and sat out the rest of the game.

"We were extremely lucky he wasn’t able to play," said Guiao, noting the 2006 Most Valuable Player had already scored 10 points before sitting it out.

But then, Guiao added, the injury is to be expected since Yap and Kerby Raymundo have been playing extended minutes.

"I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The longer the series goes, the better for us. Kerby and James are simply playing hard for too long and it’s bound to take its toll on them," he said.

Cyrus Baguio had a gamehigh 20 points, Adriano 16, Cruz 13 and Junthy Valenzuela 12 to lead Red Bull.

The 14 points by Marc Pingris and Raymundo led Purefoods. But the latter’s two missed three-point shots in overtime highlighted the Giants’ woeful 1-of-12 field goal shooting in the extension and negated the team’s 60-41 advantage off the boards.

Alaska also had only two points in overtime versus Purefoods in a 2005 Fiesta Cup eliminations game while Shell did not score at all against Talk N Text in the 2004-05 Philippine Cup.

Preventing Purefoods from joining the now-defunct Turbo Chargers in said list of futility was Peter June Simon, whose short stab in the closing seconds pegged the final score.