Rain or Shine guns for lead, rare 3 wins in row

Rain or Shine, a young team looking for a breakthrough this season, has a shot at two franchise records today as it takes on San Miguel Beer in the KFC PBA Philippine Cup at the Araneta Coliseum.

Not once in the young history of the Asian Coating ball club has it ever tasted solo league leadership or has had a streak of more than two games.

Both are in store for the Elasto Painters as they slug it out with the Beermen at 7:30 p.m. seeking to sustain the momentum of their back-to-back wins over the Air21 Express and the Red Bull Barakos.

Purefoods hopes to bounce back from a loss to San Miguel Friday while Coca-Cola tries to nail down a first win in three starts as they square off at 5 p.m.

Meanwhile, Ginebra new recruit Junjun Cabatu was named KFC-Accel PBA Player of the Week for the period Oct. 8-12 after dishing out his best game as a pro to lead the Kings to a 101-92 win over the Express Sunday. The former La Salle mainstay fired a career-high 23 points in the Ginebra victory that put them in a three-way tie on top with Rain or Shine and Alaska Milk.

The Elasto Painters hope to break out of the jam as they look forward to pulling the rug from under the Beermen.

“San Miguel has the experience and height advantage over us. They can match up with our quickness. We will just try to play hard as we can to compete against a powerhouse team,” said Rain or Shine coach Caloy Garcia.

San Miguel coach Siot Tanquingcen thinks their height advantage over Rain or Shine “also happens to be our disadvantage because of their quickness.”

Rain or Shine did use speed in winning its first two games in the season over Air21 and Red Bull. The Elasto Painters have become a running team on the entry of new recruits Gabe Norwood, Solomon Mercado and TY Tang.

The three rookies have actually improved the team in many ways with old mainstays JayR Reyes, Ryan Arana, Jireh Ibanes and Rob Wainwright getting better playing with them.

Wainwright, however, is a doubtful starter today as he hurt his left foot in a collision with Celino Cruz in their game Friday. The Fil-Am forward made three three-pointers and a total of 13 points before getting injured.