Rain or Shine needed to make shots and it did just the opposite when it lost to Globalport, 79-70, Friday in the 2018 PBA Philippine Cup.
The Elasto Painters shot a terrible 29 percent from the field, 25-of-86, with more than half of those attempts coming from the three-point area they converted just 10 of their 48 attempts.
What drew the ire of Garcia, though, wasn’t all the missed shots but because most of their attempts were open triples that just bounced off the 18-inch diameter hoop.
“We took 48 attempts from three but I told the players that I’d always accept those shots as long as they were open, but we have to make those shots,” said Garcia Friday at Mall of Asia Arena.
“We’re not making them pay since we couldn’t make those shots.”
Garcia also rued his team’s slow start with Glolbalport taking an early 19-5 lead in the first quarter. Though the Elasto Painters managed to take the lead in the second period, that margin lasted less than four minutes.
Beau Belga made a jumper at the 5:17 mark of the second quarter that gave Rain or Shine a 31-30 lead with Raymond Almazan’s layup stretching it to 33-30 50 seconds later.
Stanley Pringle stole the lead back for Globalport at the 2:52 mark of quarter number two with a jumper for the 34-33 lead and the Batang Pier never looked back.
Kelly Nabong then hit back-to-back threes to cap off Globalport’s 14-4 run between the second and third quarters for the Batang Pier’s 47-37 lead at the 10:14 mark of the penultimate period.
“We started flat and when we tried to come back, like I’ve said, we couldn’t hit our shots,” said Garcia as his team dropped to 1-2.