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Gabe Norwood wasn’t around when Rain or Shine handily beat TNT in the elimination round last month.
The Elasto Painters may not have needed Norwood as much that time, but they certainly needed his services in their quarterfinals duel on Wednesday.
Norwood anchored the Painters’ defense against TNT’s fiery import Glen Rice Jr., who shot just 8-of-28 from the field, including 1-of-12 from long range.
And playing good defense was also ROS coach Caloy Garcia’s reminder to his players before the game.
“I told them from the beginning we’re a good matchup against TNT. Matchup-wise with the import, with the locals, I believe that we’re almost running the same system, so it’s all about who wants it more on the defensive side,” he said after his team eked out a 106-102 win to stay alive for a semifinals ticket.
Norwood was the primary defender tasked to slow down Rice, who is coming off a 36-point performance in a blowout win over Barangay Ginebra four nights ago.
Norwood knows how good of a player Rice is, especially on the offensive end and the swingman thinks, the former Washington Wizard is not going to miss those many shots in the do-or-die on Friday.
“There won’t be many nights when Glen Rice’s gonna shoot 7-for-20 something. Lot of those are open looks that didn’t drop,” said Norwood, who also gave the Painters a lift offensively with 15 points on 4-of-7 shooting from downtown.
Rice is also not the only player Rain or Shine has to watch out for.
“We just gotta come out and make them work for their shots. Jayson and also Kelly came out. Semerad played well. There’s a lot of threats over there that we gotta concentrate on.”
Rice is confident TNT can bounce back. It also helped that despite the loss, the KaTropa gave themselves a chance to win in the end even after facing a 20-point lead midway through the fourth quarter.
“It’s a good effort for us in the endgame but that’s not how we win games. We need to play hard. The good thing about this is we showed that we can beat them if we play like that for the whole game,” Rice said. “But it’s gonna be hard for te team team if we play like that only for a quarter or half a quarter.”
“No pressure. We’re still in the same position that we were in today. We gotta win one game. I think we fine. Coaches have to adjust a little bit but I think we’re fine.”