COACH Yeng Guiao knows exactly what bugs his Rain or Shine team of late in its Smart Bro- PBA Philippine Cup semifinals series against San Miguel Beer.
The problem is, Guiao is hard-pressed to come up with a solution.
Unless Guiao and his Elasto Painters do come up with the answers, then expect the Beermen to end the duel Friday when they clash anew at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Due to a 103-94 win last Wednesday, SMB’s second straight, it took a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven duel that put the defending champion on the threshold of a rematch with early finalist Alaska.
Guiao remains confident his team has what it takes to force a decider, however. “We’re still very positive,” he said.
“We still feel we can take this series. All we need is to gain our momentum. Friday’s game is key, once we’re able to gain our momentum, keep the game close and play defense. It’s a coin toss if it goes to a Game 7.”
First to agree with that assessment is SMB coach Leo Austria, who stressed the need for his charges to remain on their toes.
“We have achieved nothing yet with this win,” said Austria moments after his team’s followup to its cruising 105-92 win in Game 4.
“This is a series. We need to win another one and to do that we have to continue to play deliberate and methodical.”
Guiao can’t reiterate enough the same need to his players, especially now that their backs are against the wall.
“We need to play better defense,” said Guiao. “The last two games that we’ve lost, San Miguel has been scoring in the 50s, percentage-wise. That’s just too much.”
Indeed, SMB went 40-for-78 from the field last Wednesday, with four of its nine triples coming in the decisive fourth quarter. It also had eight players scoring eight points or more, led by June Mar Fajardo’s 27 points and 12 rebounds. The Beermen also got off more fastbreak points 16-2.
For only the second time in the series Rain or Shine won the battle of the boards 42-39 and made 31 of 68 shots from the floor, which could have been good enough to win on another night.
“Actually, our offense wasn’t that bad. We can win with our offense, but we cannot win with our defense,” said Guiao. “San Miguel just has too many options. Whether it’s low post or outside shot, or even in transition.”
Fajardo went into the game averaging 36.75 points and 17.5 rebounds and was actually limited to just three and two in the final period.
That proved to be a minor concern for SMB, which had Alex Cabagnot contributing 14 points, Arwind Santos 12 points, five rebounds and two blocks and Marcio Lassiter also finishing with 12 markers.
Ronald Tubid, Gabby Espinas and Chris Ross, also provided support with nine points apiece while ex-E-Painter Ryan Arana chipped in eight.
The Beermen’s tenacity was typified most by Santos, whose back-to-back triples highlighted his eight points during a 20-6 exchange that gave the team its biggest lead of the game at 92-76.
Ross and Tubid also boomed in a triple each, the former’s trey from left quartercourt sparking the decisive run and the latter’s one from nearly the same spot helping SMB take a 100-85 spread going to the last
2:43 of the game.
“If they make their outside shots, I always say this, and they have June Mar as a post option, there’s really very little chance of beating them,” noted Guiao. “When Fajardo was making his 38, 40 points, we were actually winning. But now he’s making less, it’s more difficult for us to win games. That means they’re spreading it out.
“So we can sacrifice Fajardo scoring a little bit more, but we cannot sacrifice two or three other guys getting involved in (their) offense. So it’s really trying to stop one or two more other guys on their team so we can keep the game close.”
