Rain or Shine coach Yeng Guiao within the PBA Philippine Cup playoffs. –PBA IMAGES
Coach Yeng Guiao immediately played down Rain or Shine’s possibilities of pulling off an upset of mighty San Miguel Beer within the PBA Philippine Cup semifinals.
But Guiao and the Elasto Painters won’t just give up the best-of-seven series, which starts on Friday at Mall of Asia Arena, on a silver platter.
“We don’t have anyone to match up against them, but we’ll make things difficult for them,” Guiao said ahead of the series opener slated at 4:30 p.m. “If we win, we win. If we lose, we now have to ensure that we lose with our heads held high.”
Barangay Ginebra and Meralco, long-standing rivals, open their very own seven-game affair within the 7:30 p.m. nightcap.
Rain or Shine will probably be heavy underdogs against a San Miguel side that flirted with an elimination round sweep before surviving a resilient Terrafirma squad within the quarterfinals.
The series has an interesting subplot; a battle between the league’s heavyweight against the last independent team to win a PBA championship, one which is hoping to do it again after eight years.
That storyline should at the least put Rain or Shine better off.
“We would like San Miguel to feel all of the pressure,” Guiao said. “There’s no pressure on us. In our minds, we feel like we now have already won. We feel like we’re already champions.”
Rain or Shine made it to the semis for the primary time for the reason that 2019 Commissioner’s Cup despite a 0-4 (win-loss) start, a stretch that included a loss to San Miguel. A six-game winning streak followed suit after which the Elasto Painters bucked a Game 1 defeat to eliminate TNT in a best-of-three quarterfinals series.
Gian Mamuyac’s conference-high 25 points epitomized how different players are performing huge at a vital time for Rain or Shine. In Game 2, it was Jhonard Clarito who delivered because the Elasto Painters avoided elimination.
‘Playing the long game’
Seeing Mamuyac, Clarito and the remainder of the young core is somewhat indicative of Rain or Shine’s slow gains eventually bearing fruit since Guiao returned in 2022 to the team he guided to 2 championships.
“Attending to the semis implies that you were in a position to bump off a giant team,” Guiao said. “And as an independent team, that thing in itself is a source of pride, a source of accomplishment.
“We’re playing the long game. We will’t just acquire talent that will be a game changer for the team, we now have to develop. And that is the solution to develop talent, by getting them deep within the playoffs, getting them experience and coping with the stress of getting to take care of the situation.”
For Guiao, there’s no higher solution to try this than to face June Mar Fajardo, CJ Perez and the ultratalented San Miguel side that wishes to shut in further on its quest to retain the Philippine Cup trophy and complete a season double.
“That is going to be a toughness test,” he said. “We are going to know our real character. We are going to know for those who’re a giant player or are you any person that won’t show up when the going gets tough. They’re still young, but these guys know how you can put up a fight.”
“This seven-game series will probably be our greatest learning experience,” Guiao added.
