E-Painters toy with Carnival, grab top playoffs seeding

MANILA, Philippines -- Rain or Shine closed out its elimination-round stint with aplomb, delivering its most explosive performance in the tourney to rip apart Kia and 7-foot-3 import PJ Ramos, 119-99, and claim top seeding in the coming PBA Commissioner’s Cup playoffs at the Smart Araneta Coliseum Sunday night.

The Elasto Painters didn’t leave nothing to chance, building a mammoth 27-point lead right in the first half and keeping control all throughout for a decisive victory that rewarded them twice-to-beat incentive in the quarterfinal round.

In a blazing 6-1 (win-loss) finish in the elims, the Elasto Painters topped the preliminary round with an 8-3 overall mark, matching their feat in the 2012 Governors Cup where they went all the way to clinching their first and only PBA crown so far.

“For us, One or Two is good. The important thing is gaining the twice-to-beat advantage. We don’t care who we play as long as we have that advantage,” said Rain or Shine coach Yeng Guiao.

“By virtue of quotient, it's not really like an unquestionable accomplishment. We're tied with some other teams but we'll take it. We'll take motivation from that. It will give us encouragement going to our playoff preparations,” Guiao also said.

Rain or Shine methodically tore Kia apart, putting the Carnival in danger of missing the post-elims play with a 4-7 mark.

Kia would bank on quotient if they would salvage a spot in the Last Eight.

But whatever happens, the Columbian Autocar Corp. franchise has made a big improvement from the Philippine Cup where the Carnival only won a single game.

“We actually had problems all night long with the size, strength and power of Ramos but I guess we were able to limit the contributions of the Kia locals that’s why we were able to put up and keep a good lead,” said Guiao.

“We were able to keep the pace fast. Everybody was moving the ball well and keeping our shooters open,” added Guiao whose troops negated Ramos’ 45-point job with a balanced game spiked by 15-of-40 three-pointers and a 43-of-94 (45.7 percent) overall shooting.

Wayne Chism and his teammates also connected with 18-of-23 charities as they put in their biggest output in a game in the tourney, surpassing their effort in a 114-129 loss to the San Miguel Beermen.

Jumping out of the starting block and shooting treys in bunches, the Elasto Painters also came through with their tournament-best output in a half, firing 30 points in the first quarter and 41 in the second.

Chism accounted for six triples and a total of 28 points while Raymond Almazan, Paul Lee, Ryan Arana, Chris Tiu and Gabe Norwood added double-digit outputs for the E-Painters who led by 27 at 71-44 shortly before the end of the first half.

The Carnival once chopped their deficit to single digit, 90-99, in a determined chase in the second half.

But even with Chism resting on the bench, the E-Painters calmly restored a big lead, banking on the exploits of second-string players Almazan and Tiu.

With Tiu banging the last of his two triples, the E-Painters ripped the game wide-open again at 116-95 with time down to two minutes.

The RoS bench battered their Kia counterparts, 66-19.