Painters survive Aces in Game 3, near sweep

Game Friday (Smart Araneta Coliseum)

7 p.m. – Alaska vs Rain or Shine

MANILA, Philippines – Rain or Shine rolled out the red carpet on Yeng Guiao’s return as their full-time coach, blasting Alaska Milk in the middle quarters and hacking out a 112-108 victory to move to within a game of wrapping up the Oppo PBA Commissioner’s Cup crown at the Big Dome Wednesday night.

The Elasto Painters exerted the best effort they can to warm Guiao’s heart, thoroughly dismantling the Aces in the second and third periods as they built a huge 27-point lead that cushioned the impact of Alaska’s endgame siege.

The E-Painters try to clinch the best-of-seven title playoff via a four-game sweep Friday at the same venue.

“The players talked among themselves. They wanted to win this game for coach Yeng,” said a member of the ROS coaching staff.

Guiao is just done serving his Pampanga constituents as their representative in Congress. What he can look forward to is a seventh PBA crown, second with Rain or Shine in four years.

“It’s good that we had a huge lead as we didn’t finish well. But it’s a win, and we can finish the series on Friday. That’s what’s important,” said Guiao.

 “We have a 3-0 lead and we’ve had one foot inside the door. It has happened before (a team fighting back from 0-3 deficit) and I can happen again. That’s in our mind and we don’t want to be in that (losing) position,” Guiao added.

Alaska coach Alex Compton said the next game “will be all about pride,” hinting at continuously fighting it hard even with one foot in the grave.

They just didn’t have the chance last night, with the E-Painters shooting almost at will in the second and third quarters.

The ROS gunners went 6-of-8 from beyond the arc to highlight their second-quarter breakaway then converted five-of-10 treys as they even stepped up their bid in the next period, erecting a 27-point bulge at 95-68.

The Elasto Painters knocked in a total of 15 three-pointers in the match, courtesy of JR Quinahan (4-of-5), Jericho Cruz (3-of-5), Paul Lee (2-of-4), Jeff Chan (2-of-5), Jireh IBanes (1-of-1), Gabe Norwood (1-of-2), Jewel Ponferada (1-of-2) and Chris Tiu (1-of-2).

Quinahan finished with a team-high 18 points with Cruz adding 17 and Lee 10. Import Pierre Henderson-Niles came through with 11 markers, 13 boards and five assists.

 “We’re able to keep pace with them and we had a good ball movement where we got our three-point shooting. And we get our confidence early because of that. That gave us the big lead,” said Guiao.

“We had numerous turnovers in the fourth quarter but we had a 20-point lead at that time. As we lost our mental focus, we lost the huge lead,” Guiao added.

The final count didn’t reflect how the E-Painters dominated the contest.

Averaging 50 first-half points in the first two games, the E-Painters were extra hotter in this game, going 8-of-17 from beyond the arc and 22-of-38 from the field overall to sit on a 62-47 cushion at halftime.

The E-Painters hit from almost all angles and all corners as they cut loose from a 28-all count at the start of the second quarter.

The Aces were actually still in the lead at 33-30 before the E-Painters unleashed a vicious salvo that opened a 16-point spread for ROS at 58-42.

The two teams fought through 10 lead changes and the same number of deadlocks before the Aces faded away. At the height of the battle, Beau Belga had heated confrontations with Calvin Abueva and Dondon Hontiveros.

Quinahan fired back-to-back treys that gave the E-Painters a first double-digit margin at 49-39 with 4:50 to go in the first half.