MANILA, Philippines – Rain or Shine had won 4 overtime games in the 2018 PBA Commissioner’s Cup alone. 

When it is a close game, the Elasto Painters more often than not come out with the win, and that is one of the reasons why they entered the playoffs with the best record in the league. 

So for Beau Belga, they could not afford to trail big and then just try to mount a comeback every single game in their best-of-5 semifinals series against Barangay Ginebra. 

Case in point: Rain or Shine’s 72-75 Game 3 loss on Saturday, July 21, that put the Gin Kings ahead of the series, 2-1, and just a win away from a berth in the best-of-7 championship round. 

The Elasto Painters trailed by as much as 25 points, no thanks to a dismal 23-point output at halftime and 20 heading into 4th quarter before finally finding their footing to make a game out of it. 

Cutting its deficit to 3 points in the final 10 seconds, Rain or Shine had a chance to forge overtime but James Yap missed back-to-back potential game-tying triples as the clock expired. 

“Down by 20 sa 4th quarter, nahabol so alam namin sa sarili namin na ‘pag ginusto namin, kaya naming talunin ‘yung Ginebra,” said Belga. 

(Down by 20 in the 4th quarter, we came back so we know that when we want to, we can defeat Ginebra)

“Pero from the start of the game, papatambak ka ng bente mahigit, iisipin mo ano na lang, to play the game na matatapos na lang. Pero nagpursige kami e and mahirap manalo ng down ka ng ganoon kalaki.”

(If you get buried by more than 20 points, you will just think of playing the game just to finish it. But we persevered. However, it is hard to win when you are down that big.) 

Game 2 was the same story, with Rain or Shine getting buried in a 14-point hole. The only difference was the Elasto Painters were successful in staging the comeback en route to a rousing 109-100 triumph last July 19. 

Come-from-behind wins are always good stories to tell, but Belga knows it is a tedious process to pull off victories that way. 

“Idikit lang namin. Last game, dikit lang ‘yung laro pero pagdating ng dulo, na-survive namin. Kailangan lang namin ayusin ‘yung start namin.” 

(We just need to make it a close game. Last game, we made it a close game and we survived with the win. We just need to fix how we start games.) 

The Elasto Painters seek to force a rubber match and avoid elimination when they meet the Gin Kings in Game 4 on Monday, July 23, at the Araneta Coliseum. – Rappler.com