Elasto Painters go 2-0 vs Beermen sans Guiao

MANILA, Philippines – Marcio Lassiter drained a trey that failed to beat the final buzzer and Rain or Shine escaped with a 98-96 thriller of a win over San Miguel Beer to move in the threshold of a second straight PBA Commissioner’s Cup Finals at the Smart Araneta Coliseum last night.

The Elasto Painters, playing catch-up majority of the first half, turned the game around on a relentless running game in the second half and survived the Beermen’s endgame siege to score a follow-up on their 98-94 triumph in Game One Sunday.

On their ninth consecutive semifinals stint, the E-Painters can make it all the way to the finals with a win either in Game Three tomorrow, Game Four on Sunday or Game Five on Tuesday.

And the E-Painters pulled off their second straight come-from-behind win over the Beermen with assistant coach Caloy Garcia calling the shots in place of head coach Yeng Guiao, who attended a political exercise in his home province.

 “The instruction gave us by coach Yeng in practice was to run the whole game. I think we did what he wanted us to do,” said Garcia.

“I was overwhelmed by the way the players played. The players wanted it more,” Garcia also said.

Meanwhile, Alaska Milk workhorse Calvin Abueva is ready to come out and continue to battle – a major boost for the Aces as they also go for a commanding 2-0 lead versus the Meralco Bolts in their side of the best-of-five semis tonight, also at the Big Dome.

Game time is at 7 p.m. with the Aces out to press their bid following their 97-94 victory in the series opener Monday.

An alarming sight for the Aces in Game One was Abueva writhing in pain down on the floor and being helped to their bench in the closing seconds of the match. But Abueva himself has said he’s okay.

Pierre Henderson-Niles once again put up a good job versus JuneMar Fajardo while Jericho Cruz, Jeff Chan, Maverick Ahanmisi, JR Quiñahan and Chris Tiu outgunned their SMB counterparts as the E-Painters inched closer to a return stint in the second conference finals which they lost to Tropang TNT last year.

After Rain or Shine overhauled an 11-point deficit and roared to a 13-point spread, San Miguel worked on its own fightback but ran out of time – literally – in its bid.

Down by only two, 96-98, with 13.8 ticks to go, the Beermen ran a good play but Lassiter fumbled in his possession and lost precious time.

Lassiter did regain control of the ball and quickly threw a shot from beyond the arc that hit the board then swished through the net.

Review of the play, however, showed that the ball was still in the hands of Lassiter when the clock ticked 00:00.

“We knew it’s already late,” said Garcia.

Lassiter has been throwing bricks in the series, going 1-of-9 from the field in Game One and 1-of-11 last night.