RAIN or Shine's luck continued to hold up, no little thanks to a ton of extra effort that led to a 126-112 win over sliding Meralco Sunday in the PBA Philippine Cup at the Ynares Center in Antipolo.
Santi Santillan and Gian Mamuyac led a strong start before the other Elasto Painters followed suit, resulting in as much as a 112-85 lead enroute to a second straight wire-to-wire win that gave them a 2-1 slate overall.
Making the win more impressive is the fact Rain or Shine fashioned it despite Caelan Tiongson (back spasms) joining Beau Belga (vertigo) and Keith Datu (calf strain) in the sideline, a deficiency coach Yeng Guiao tried to solve through a fast-paced game that obviously worked.
"We just tried to play to our strong suit, which is playing with a lot of pace. We wanted to get out and just attack, attack and keep attacking the defense of Meralco," said Guiao.
"Alam namin maliliit kami so ang talagang advantage lang namin is our quickness and our speed," added Guiao. "We had practically zero bigs so the only way we can win the game is to keep playing fast, which is what we always do anyway. So nag-rely lang kami doon sa speed namin."
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Santillan's 27 points and seven rebounds led the way for Rain or Shine, while Mamuyac and Adrian Nocum each came through with 24 points with the latter scattering 22 of those in the second half.
Felix Lemetti tossed in 13 points while Gabe Norwood 12 and five boards while mainly manning the middle in his almost 38 minutes of action.
"We knew coming into this one, the last couple of days our bigs are gonna be unavailable so there was a mindset... that this is going to be the scenario so we were prepared," said Norwood.
"People are like in really good shape right now... everybody who is healthy is feeling good and we just wanted to keep the game as fast as possible to our advantage."
The loss was the third straight for Meralco, dropping it to a 2-3 record despite outdueling Rain or Shine off the boards, 55-40.
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Bong Quinto scored 23 points and CJ Cansino and Raymar Jose each tallied 21, and the returning Chris Banchero 14 points but the Bolts could not find any real offensive rhythm after committing 20 turnovers which the E-Painters translated into a plus-10 advantage in turnover points.
Meralco even tried matching Rain or Shine's "small ball," but the ploy only worked part-time as the E-Painters steadily pulled away from a 66-59 halftime count before entering the final canto with a 102-82 spread and eventually finishing with its most points for the season.(NC)
The Scores :
RAIN OR SHINE 128 - Santillan 27, Mamuyac 24, Nocum 24, Lemetti 13, Norwood 12, Clarito 10, Malonzo 9, Caracut 7, Borboran 2, Asistio 0.
MERALCO 116 - Quinto 23, Jose 21, Cansino 21, Banchero 14, Hodge 8, Caram 7, Bates 6, Black 5, Rios 4, Newsome 3, Reyson 2, Almaazan 2, Pascual 0.
QUARTERS: 29-28, 66-59, 102-82, 128-116
