ROS ENDS YEAR ON HIGH NOTE, RIPS SMC
In revelries ahead of New Year’s Eve, the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters threw firecrackers all over Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City Sunday night.
They lit up the playing venue with firebomb upon firebomb, biding goodbye to year 2013 with a 101-77 torching of the San Mig Coffee Mixers.
“This is the best way for us to end the year,” said Rain or Shine coach Yeng Guiao as they went back-to-back-back in their Yuletide season grind in the PLDT MyDSL PBA Philippine Cup.
Heading into the 2014 run of the all-Filipino tourney, Rain or Shine, with a 7-3 win-loss card, is within striking distance of leaders Barangay Ginebra San Miguel (9-1) and Petron Blaze (8-2).
The E-Painters ended 2013 with a big bang.
“We caught San Mig Coffee on a night that they were mentally down. I don’t think they’re in this game mentally from the beginning. We’re lucky to catch them in this situation,” said Guiao.
“We were shooting great and it’s a good time for our rookies to get confidence and get the minutes,” Guiao also said.
Somehow, it did look that the Mixers weren’t ready to play, completely dominated by the E-Painters to the utter disappointment and frustration of coach Tim Cone.
Hardly seeing fire and intensity from his players, Cone was in complete silence during the halftime break.
In the final half, he stayed silent on their bench until the closing part when their reserves had subbed the San Mig core group.
Cone just couldn’t stand seeing his team toyed around with and falling behind by 25, 32-57, even before the halftime break.
Unmerciful, the E-Painters hardly slowed down in the final half.
Guiao underscored they meant business as he incurred a technical foul even with his team leading by a big margin in the fourth quarter.
The E-Painters sustained their dominance to the finish, thus, scoring their biggest win in the tourney. Their previous largest winning margin was 13 fashioned out against Alaska, 87-74.
No. 3 draft selection Raymond Almazan came up with a breakthrough performance, delivering game highs of 17 points, 11 rebounds and two blocks in just 24 minutes of action.
Jeff Chan, Paul Lee and JR Quinahan combined for 11-of-18 three-point shooting and a total of 42 points.
Chris Tiu and Ryan Arana also knocked in a trey each as the E-Painters totaled 13 three-pointers as against the Mixers’ three.
Rain or Shine worked the ball around very well as reflected by its 30 assists and 46.9 percent shooting compared with San Mig’s 14 assists and 35.1-percent clip.
Aggressive and effective from the start, the E-Painters pulled away right in the first quarter at 27-17.
And there’s no stopping RoS from scoring its first three-game run in the tourney. (SB)
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