PBA: Belga rues tough loss to Beermen

by Jonas Terrado

Beau Belga was obviously the most heartbroken figure on the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters after a costly turnover in regulation allowed the San Miguel Beermen to force overtime and eventually escape with a 107-101 victory in Friday’s PBA Philippine Cup game at the Mall of Asia Arena.

The Elasto Painters were holding a 96-94 lead with 7.2 seconds left in the fourth quarter when Belga, who was waiting to be fouled while being double-teamed, lost the ball that allowed the Beermen to have another chance to tying the game.

Indeed, San Miguel was able to benefit from that turnover when Alex Cabagnot hit a long jumper off Jeff Chan with 1.4 seconds remaining, thus extending the thrilling contest to an extra period.

Deflated from that shot, the Elasto Painters failed to recover quickly, thus waiting a golden opportunity to tighten their grip on second place.

“Panalo na kami dun,” Belga said after emerging from the dugout. “Kung finoul naman ako, di mo alam ang mangyayari e. So sa sarili ko hindi ako makakatulog ngayon. Bad trip.”

So instead of going 5-3, Rain or Shine now share second with GlobalPort, and could be joined by TNT KaTropa and Alaska should they win their respective matches today at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

“Sayang yung spot para sa playoffs, nasa amin na pinakawalan pa namin,” Belga reflected. “Try lang magsurvive, may pag-asa pa naman maging top two pero hindi magiging madali ang lahat, tignan natin.”

Coach Caloy Garcia refrained from saying that his team played complacent late when Belga’s triple with 2:38 in the fourth put the Elasto Painters in control, 96-90, before suffering a collapse that reflected on the occasion of Friday the 13th.

“We hit two big three-point shots that gave us a six-point lead, but from there we missed wide-open shots,” said Garcia. “So ayun, I think it’s just the game, we weren’t doing a good job on defense, Cabagnot hit a big shot to make it go to overtime. They hit the big shots and we didn’t.”

San Miguel won its seventh straight game to solidify its hold of the top spot at 8-1, while but sure of taking a twice-to-beat advantage going into the quarterfinals of the season-opening conference.

That incentive may elude the Elasto Painters come the end of the eliminations. Should they fail to do so, they’ll look at this game as the one that got away.