Best of the Night. Jeff Chan's 24 points and three bigtime 3-pointers. Chan led Rain or Shine's revolt on staying alive in their duel with the remaining Cojuanco-dog in the Finals. The Painters slapped the Mixers with an 81-74 win, pulled themselves to 2-3 series tally, and forced a Wednesday night blockbuster. Though Chan needed 16 shots to punch those points, his blaze illuminated Rain or Shine, who, at one point, were ten points down, by draining timely three's in the fourth quarter. It's not too common, but this series is looking like it's gonna be won through three-pointers. No offense to the old, and more common "Defense wins championships" saying.
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| (c) Nuki Sabio/ PBA |
Worst of the Night. Field goal percentages. Okay, I have to apologize for saying that 3-pointers will decide this series. Obviously, defense did a bunch of ranting tonight. A strong evidence to this would be both teams' field goal efficiency. San Mig Coffee shot 26 of 68 (38.2%) from the field, even beating the winning Rain or Shine team percentage-wise. The Painters drained only 28 shots out of their 74 attempts (37.8%). Talk about defense talking about doing the most talking.
Better Numbers. San Mig Coffee's statistician fans everywhere might be rejoicing over their team's dominance in game 5. Too bad, that's just statistics-wise. Mixers actually beat Rain or Shine in a lot of departments. Rebounding, 49-47, free-throw shooting, 75%-60.7%, fastbreak points, 12-7, and second chance points, 10-6. The final score is the only number taken though, so big sorry for San Mig Coffee.
Tiu-torized. I honestly shout my lungs out everytime Chris Tiu does something spectacular in the game earlier. Too bad for me, now I'm losing my voice. Chris Tiu, being the last Chris remaining in the conference, decided to step it up tonight in the name of every Chris in the league. The Atenean dropped 9 points from 4 shots, grabbed 3 rebounds, dished 2 assists, and sniped a steal, just in 17 minutes of play. It took him 8 games to find that groove, so this is beautiful inconsistency for my favorite Chris. He was a strong Player of the Game candidate until Jeff Chan happened. Good tragedy.
Brewed Veterans. James Yap and Marc Pingris combined for a good 36 points for San Mig Coffee's own revolution. Yap, who was playing intensely intense for the past 4 games, had 18 points and 6 rebounds, and even threatened the Elasto Painters with his deadly shooting late in the game. Pingris delivered his usual mountain-high performance despite being hurt when he sustained an eye injury from game 4. The former Finals MVP had 18 points and 15 rebounds for the Mixers. SMC fans are sure happy with that.
Quote. "We can not lose our sense of destiny. Even if we're behind, it's not yet over. We have to believe in ourselves and stay positive." - coach Yeng Guiao. This is one fatherly statement from coach Yeng Guiao, who, by the way, received a technical foul for calmly complaining, or maybe, the other way around.
Technical Counter. Speaking of which, Game 5 technical foul count is at 1.
Bits.
-Joe Devance had 7 points on 3 of 12 shooting night. Yes, the speaker is quiet, so his flat top is way higher than his output. His hair deserved more of those 34 minutes he was on the floor.
-Pingris scored 6 of his 18 points from whamming the rim. Eye injury, what?
-PJ Simon's defense was better than his offense in this game. Want a proof? He has no field goals in 31 minutes, and he blocked 2 shots. See?
-Jeff Chan probably made it up to their back to back missed game changing three's from games 3 and 4.
San Mig Coffee still dictates the series. Game 6 on Wednesday.
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