Rain or Shine scores back-to-back wins

Ready? Sing!
My toes, my knees, my shoulders, my pwet.

Just a couple of days separated from their victory over the still adjusting Alaska Aces, the Rain or Shine Elastopainters were able to score another win this time over newly minted PBA Commissioner's Cup champions BMeg Llamados 100-94.

And while Quinito Henson shamelessly froths at the mouth over the athleticism of the Elastopainters' Gabe Norwood (who was just a couple of adjectives away from going so far as calling Norwood the league's LeBron James), the game was won by the team as a whole.


The Llamados, who were without bigs Marc Pingris and Joe Devance, trailed early before bouncing back and even leading with 2 minutes left into the game. Only problem was, instead of slowing things down (put the blame on Josh Urbiztondo), they opted to try and light up the scoreboard.

Big mistake when taking on the Elastopainters which features the league's most potent, scoring roster bar none. Other teams have high scoring guards and a bunch of rebounders, others, low scoring guards and mid-range playing bigs. The Elastopainters feature about eight to nine guys with the exception of Jireh Ybanes and JayR Quinahan who could drop buckets when given the chance.

While Norwood finished with a solid 10-7-5 statline, rookie Paul Lee (who had a mini-slump in the 2nd conference) was the catalyst on offense and gave his teammates purpose on the floor each time he was on it. Beau Belga, now sporting a Mr Shu-Li like, thin beard, also contributed with timely buckets and passable defense on the Llamados' Yancy de Ocampo-- who was having a Fedex Express flashback at the time.

The imports cancelled each other out, but the way their respective teams are constructed, the Elastopainters' Jamelle Cornley isn't a flashy scorer but he is built like a Pinoy-sized power forward but with speed and decent hops. He can play defense while also being alert enough to score points for his team. The Llamados' on the other hand, paraded Marcus Blakely who is clearly a scorer by trade. Probably not the best choice for Coach Tim Cone and his guys, given that they already have trigger happy stars James Yap and PJ Simon in the fold.

Another great contributor for the Elastopainters' cause is undersized power forward Jervy Cruz. He'll never live up to the "next great Pinoy big man" hype we Thomasians (and some basketball purists) hoped for (primarily because he's 6"3 and no longer has a guy named Japs Cuan as his PG) but there's no one outside of maybe Air21's Bitoy Omolon who finishes better underneath the hoop.

Llamados fans shouldn't be all too concerned (though this is a short conference). All they need is their inside presence (Pingris) back and if YDO keeps playing Ranidel-level basketball, they'll still be a force to reckon with.

Loved the last minute chess match between Coaches Yeng and Tim too. Hats off to Coach Yeng for that marvelous play in regulation that almost gave them the win outright. For Coach Tim, well, maybe he should've opted to play Jonas Villanueva a bit more to control the tempo.

Free Jonas V.