Painters go for title, and a drink, again

Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net

WITH THE balloons left hanging in the rafters and the bubbly needing to be cooled again, Rain or Shine tries one more time to wrap up its Oppo PBA Commissioner’s Cup title series against Alaska Sunday and stop the pressure from mounting at Smart Araneta Coliseum in Cubao.

“We need to finish this (today) so that we can all have a drink,” Rain or Shine big man Beau Belga told reporters in Filipino after coming out of more than an hour-long dressing down from coach Yeng Guiao after a terrible 111-99 Game 4 loss Friday.

Guiao’s trip to the UK to see daughter Niner’s graduation was rebooked as the E-Painters now need a 5 p.m. Game 5 for the best-of-seven title playoffs.

The Painters played their worst game of the series and were never in the game, trailing by as large as 23 points to lose for just the second time in these playoffs and miss the chance of clinching the title via a rare sweep.

“That’s behind us now,” superstar guard Paul Lee, the leading Finals MVP candidate for the Painters, said in Filipino, referring to the botched chance of applying the broom on the Aces and joining an elite list of champions.

“We can still get the job done (in Game 5),” Lee, the Games 1 and 2 hero, added while on the way back to his car and posing for photos with fans. “We just couldn’t do it today (in Game 4). You saw the way they (Aces) played.”

There were six players in twin digits for the Aces on that night and Lee couldn’t help but be amazed.

“There were so many of them who were on target tonight,” Lee said.

It will take an effort of nothing less than that for the Aces to drag this series deeper and continue to silence Rain or Shine, who lost Game 4 not because it was shut down, but also because the Painters’ offense faltered.

Rain or Shine is trying to snap a titleless streak that dates back to 2012 and Guiao would have to get more from import Pierre Henderson-Niles for their championship banners to be unfurled tonight.

On Friday, the 6-foot-8 former University of Memphis mainstay hit just three points and grabbed just five rebounds.

The Aces will try to crawl back into the series after falling into a 0-3 deficit.

Only the San Miguel Beer team in the last Philippine Cup was able to overhaul a 0-3 deficit to win a title series, beating this same Alaska side in the last four games.