Painters dodge bullet
RAIN or Shine is wont to deny it, but it cannot help looking at its overall score against Purefoods in their KFC-PBA Philippine Cup quarterfinals series.
"We know that we should be the ones leading this," Elasto Painters coach Caloy Garcia remarked after his team scored a 95-92 victory last night to score a breakthrough win in the best-of-five duel and arrange at least another game at the Araneta Coliseum.
Unlike in their 94-95 loss in Game 2 last Sunday when they blew a 20-point third quarter lead, the Elasto Painters kept their poise down the stretch in the face of another Purefoods comeback.
"I told the players that we have to compete every game and not look at the standings, to believe we can still make a comeback in this series," Garcia said after his team dodged a three-game sweep.
"It’s been tough mentally," he also admitted. "We were playing well in the wildcard and then to come out and lose two tough games, the last time when it was us leading them."
None showed more heart than Jeffrei Chan, who scored 12 of his team-high 17 points through four triples in the fourth period, and Gabe Norwood, who capped a 16-point night by dunking home a missed drive by Chan that made it a safe 95-90 count, only 4.6 ticks left.
"The difference between this and the first two games? Even in the endgame of this one, we went up by eight and Purefoods still came back. That’s experience," said Garcia. "Purefoods, almost a decade na in this position, while kami bago pa lang.
"Tingin ko maturity lang. Last game, in the final two minutes we crumbled. Even in this game we still made some simple mistakes in the endgame."
Nino Canaleta’s 18 points, six assists and five rebounds led Purefoods, which played minus the injured Kerby Raymundo (thigh), Rico Maierhofer (ankle) and PJ Simon (knee).
Even James Yap had a sorry touch from three-point land, going 0-for-8 from beyond the arc.
Still, the Giants put up one big fight that saw them come charging back from an 80-91 deficit in the last 3:04 and threaten at 90-93 on a three-point play by Rafi Reavis, still 27.5 ticks left.
Then came Norwood’s followup slam that quashed whatever hopes Purefoods may have had.
"It’s been our play in the last three games, to try and penetrate even if they’re long and athletic," said Norwood, who also had seven rebounds and four feeds. "I just happened to be in the right place."
Purefoods, however, can still wrap up the series in Game 4 tomorrow, also at the Big Dome.
Mike Hrabak added 15 points, on 5-of-8 three-point shooting and held his own in the paint, enabling RoS to withstand the ejection of Mark Telan due to a second technical foul for flooring Paul Artadi with 3:04 left.
That incident was the second for Telan in the game after engaging Reavis in a shoving match at the final 4:56 mark and the latest in a game that was played hard and sometimes physical by both teams.