Guiao remains upbeat after Rain or Shine meltdown
Rain or Shine head coach Yeng Guiao maps out a play during one of his rare timeouts in a 109-105 loss to San Miguel Beer in Game 1 of the 2016 PBA Philippine Cup semifinals Tuesday night at Mall of Asia Arena. Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net
Rain or Shine had the lead for the most part of its semifinals opener against defending champion San Miguel Beer before collapsing when it mattered most.
But no matter how painful the loss was for the Elasto Painters, their head coach Yeng Guiao wouldn’t want to dwell on what’s already done.
After all, it’s just Game 1 of a best-of-seven.
“We just need to put this behind us,” said Guiao, who gave his players an earful in the dugout following the Painters’ 109-105 loss on Tuesday night. “It’s a very disappointing loss, but it’s a long series so we’ll just prepare tomorrow (Wednesday) and come back Thursday and learn from the lesson of today (Tuesday).”
“We don’t want this game to stop us from doing what we need to do,” added Guiao, who got involved in a heated commotion with Beermen guard Chris Ross early in the third quarter.
The Painters lost despite leading by as high as 22 points and blew a 20-point lead in the fourth quarter where the Beermen outscored them, 38-14.
San Miguel Beer came back behind its hot shooting — making 6-of-12 3-pointers in the final frame after going 4-of-19 in the first three quarters — and its prized center June Mar Fajardo, who scored 11 of his game-high 36 points in the period.
Fajardo, the reigning back-to-back MVP, went 13-of-22 from the field and had 18 rebounds and five blocks.
Still, Guiao had positive takeaways from the setback one of which was his star guard Paul Lee playing his first game this season after recovering from a left knee injury and that his team was able to lead San Miguel for a long period of time.
“I guess to look at this game positively, to be able to lead San Miguel for the most part of the game that means there’s really a chance we can beat them,” said Guiao.
“Actually, the game was ours to lose. For three quarters we were in the lead and we can’t blame anybody but ourselves. I think we should take the lesson of this game and be a better team this Thursday.”
