Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net
RAIN OR SHINE coach Yeng Guiao emerged from the locker room almost two hours after a 78-86 Game 5 loss to Alaska on Sunday night but still found time to be with reporters who patiently waited for him.
And he said a ton of things.
“We’re still going to win this championship,” Guiao said after the Elasto Painters’ championship celebrations were stalled by defeat for the second straight game.
“I will not dare make any more predictions, except at the end we will win this thing.”
Rain or Shine’s once-imposing three-game lead has been cut to 3-2 after the low-scoring contest on Sunday, a setback Guiao attributed to the paltry number of free throws they got and to the referees being “hypnotized by [Alaska’s Calvin] Abueva’s acting.”
“We got 11 free throws compared to their 27, so that’s plus-16 already,” Guiao said. “We must figure out a way to give up [fewer free throws] and get more.”
Abueva has been solid the last two games and was the biggest difference for the Aces in Game 5, where he got the goat of several Rain or Shine players and managed to sell the fouls to game officials.
“The foul they called on (Beau) Belga in a followup wasn’t a foul,” Guiao said of a sequence that had the referees nullifying a Belga basket.
Guiao said his team will not fall apart, and that they are still in a far better position than the Aces are after Game 5.
“We still have two chances,” said Guiao, who is shooting to win a seventh career title.
Game 6 is slated tomorrow, also at Smart Araneta Coliseum in Cubao, where the rafters have held their balloons and confetti since Friday morning, hours before Game 4 was played.
Alaska’s two wins highlighted its ability to win both lopsided and low-scoring games. The Aces led by as many as 23 points in Game 4.
Guiao said he is not surprised that Alaska would come back to trim its series deficit.
“Had you told me at the start of this series that we would go up 3-0 and have a chance of sweeping this thing, I wouldn’t have believed you,” he said.
“The thing I told [my players] is that it is true that they (Aces) have the momentum. But even teams with momentum can be beaten.”