By REYNALD MAGALLON
Rain or Shine outran and outgunned Terrafirma to essay a convincing 116-104 victory in the 2024 PBA Philippine Cup at the Caloocan Sports Complex on Saturday, April 13.
In what started as an offensive shootout between the two teams, the Elasto Painters proved to have more weapons in their arsenal as Beau Belga and Andrei Caracut led ROS balanced attack to extend their winning run to four.
The Dyip simply ran out of gas and couldn’t keep up to the high tempo offense of the Elasto Painters who had seven players scoring in double figures and dished out an impressive total of 40 assists — the most by any PBA team since San Miguel Beer had 46 in the Governors’ Cup last year.
Belga sustained his stellar run, scattering 19 points apart from his eight rebounds and seven assists while Caracut had a double-double of 17 points and 10 assists to pace Rain or Shine.
The two also joined hands in a back-breaking 10-0 run, highlighted by their back-to-back triples that stretched a tight 92-89 lead into a huge 13-point advantage 102-89 midway through the final frame.
Terrafirma still had the chance to cut the deficit and threaten in the waning minutes but timely hits from Belga and Leonard Santillan simply took the fight out of the Dyip.
Jhonard Clarito, who spearheaded Rain or Shine assault in the first half, finished with 16 points and eight rebounds while Santillan, who was running fifth in the Best Player of the Conference race, added 15 points, nine rebounds and four assists.
Mark Borboran and Mac Belo had 13 and 11 points respectively while it was Gian Mamuyac who the other Elasto Painter in twin digit scoring with 10.
ROS, after opening the conference with four straight losses, has now evened its tally to 4-4 to rise to the fifth spot of the standings while giving a hopeful Terrafirma a quick reality check after absorbing its second straight defeat.
Juami Tiongson finished with 20 points while Stephen Holt flirted with a triple-double with 20 points, 13 assists and eight rebounds.
Riding the momentum of its gallant stand against defending champion San Miguel Beer last time out, the Dyip also got solid contributions from Javi Gomez De Liano and Isaac Go who chipped in 18 and 13 points respectively.
Their efforts however were simply not enough as what was a promising run now looked to be on the verge of a huge collapse for the Dyip who slid down to 4-5 record.
