BLUE-COLLAR ETHICS SPELLED DIFFERENCE
THE higher the stakes, so much greater is the effort needed.
His San Mig Coffee team failed to live up to the said adage while Rain or Shine did and that’s what rankles at head coach Tim Cone the most.
“We had great effort, we worked hard. They just worked harder,” Cone grudgingly admitted moments after the Elasto Painters’ 90-83 win over his Mixers last Thursday in their PBA Philippine Cup semifinal duel at the SM Mall of Asia Arena.
“We worked really hard, but they were able to outwork us still,” he added.
The victory enabled Rain or Shine to wrap up the best-of-seven duel in six games and advance to its second straight Finals while relegating San Mig to third place.
Cone was positive his charges could follow up their 79-67 victory in Game 5 and force a decider. “i really thought we were going to win (last Thursday),” he said. “I’m a little surprised and shocked that we didn’t.”
Blame it all on the kind of game on both ends of the court the E-Painters put in, leaving the Mixers, to put it mildly, at a loss. “I thought they got mentally fatigued, they got a little bit frustrated,” said Cone.
Some of the final figures tell it all. Not known for being a really good rebounding team, Rain or Shine beat San Mig off the boards, 62-48, including 24-9 on the offensive end. That advantage translated to 28-5 disparity in second chance points and 15-3 in fastbreak points. Those extra possessions also gave the E-Painters 22 more tries at the basket than the Mixers’ 69.
“They had great energy on the rebounding,” noted Cone. “We just couldn’t battle them on the boards. You don’t mind getting outplayed, but we really got outworked (Thursday).”
Rain or Shine also came out on top of San Mig in the game’s other departments, like on offense.
Jeff Chan rebounded from a measly three-point performance in the Game 5 loss by pouring in 27 points while Paul Lee bucked foul trouble to chip in 15 and snap out of two straight bad games. Gabe Norwood only had 10 points but he and Beau Belga were tireless workers off the boards with 12 caroms each.
PJ Simon finished with a game-high 29 points, his second most in a game this conference, and Marc Pingris 15 on top of 11 rebounds but the likes of James Yap, Joe Devance and Mark Barroca groped for their usual fiery forms for majority of the game.
Yap missed 14 of his 15 shots from the field and the first four of his five charity attempts for six markers, Devance wound up with 14 points but made only five of 15 field tries and Barroca went 3-for-8 from the floor for also six points.
“I thought we got some good shots for the most part of the game,” said Cone. “James got some good looks, they just didn’t go down. Joe got some good looks, they didn’t go down for him either. Our main offensive guys were struggling, except for PJ. Without PJ out there we could have easily been got beaten by 30. PJ kept us in the game, but everybody else struggled.”
It’s not just Rain or Shine’s defense, however, as San Mig also muffed 15 free throw attempts to the E-Painters’ 10, prompting Cone to point to another source of his guys’ shooting woes other than the heavy minutes they logged.
“I thought they got mentally fatigued, they got a little bit frustrated,” he said.
Even his Rain or Shine counterpart Yeng Guiao admitted things would have gone different had a decider been forced.
“I was just telling the guys before the game that it’s either we finish off San Mig Coffee in Game 6 or they finish us off in Game 7,” said Guiao. “I felt that had this series gone to a Game 7 our chances for winning were going to be really low.”
Cone could only look back at his Mixers’ back-to-back losses in Games 3 and 4 of the series, when they initially got outworked and fell to a 1-3 hole.
“That’s why you don’t want to come down and get your back to the wall, because when you have a couple of guys struggling that night it lessens your chances,” he said.
Cone could only ponder that. “There are things we should have done but didn’t do in Game 6, and that’s how it is,” he said.
“If we played again (Sunday) night we’d probably do those things. But (Thursday)… we didn’t.” (NC)
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