By REYNALD MAGALLON
There’s a glaring difference with how Rain or Shine played in the Game 1 of the semifinals against San Miguel as compared during their quarterfinals showdown against TNT.
They were a step slower.
Blame it on the Elasto Painters’ tired legs or the Beermen were simply masters of dictating the slower tempo but fact remains head coach Yeng Guiao was not pleased with how they failed to take full advantage of their speed.
“I’m not happy with the pace of the game today. I feel we should push the pace faster. We’re not going to beat San Miguel playing halfcourt offense,” said the fiery mentor.
“That’s another area of adjustment is you want to push harder going down court of our transition to increase the pace of the game,” he added.
The Elasto Painters did manage to force the Beermen to 16 turnovers but they just couldn’t seem to go and run after only scoring 14 points off those turnovers against SMB’s 13 points.
With SMB getting the slower tempo that it wanted, the Beermen also had the opportunity to dump the ball inside on June Mar Fajardo who posted 23 points on an efficient 73-percent clip from the field.
Without a big man legitimately capable of pushing the 6-foot-10, 268 lbs behemoth away from the paint, Fajardo would only impose bigger problems for ROS if SMB gets to slow down the pace of the game.
“When you play San Miguel, your biggest problem naman talaga is your June Mar matchup e so a lot of their scoring opportunities come off that post play. Tinignan ko yung percentage nya ngayon, 73 percent so every time he gets himself to the low post and takes a shot that’s almost like a sure shot,” Guiao pointed out.
Despite not playing their usual high-octane game, Rain or Shine still hung around SMB and actually had a shot at sending the game to an extra period.
For one, they only lost three points to the juggernaut that is SMB and the story could have been different if they were able to make their free throws.
“A three-point game with 11 missed free throws. We’re just not making enough free throws for us not to beat ourselves so we should be able to improve our percentage. 64-percent free throws, 11 missed,” he pointed out.
