There were many things that were not going well for the Rain or Shine Elastopainters on Saturday night at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium.
But the big games of Leonardo Santillan, Andrei Caracut, Jhonard Clarito, Anton Asistio 11 and Michael Malonzo, allowed the Elastopainters to pull off a come-from-behind 103-92 triumph over the NLEX Road Warriors.
The Elastopainters’ second consecutive win over the no. 2 seed Road Warriors allowed to complete the Final Four cast in the 49th Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Philippine Cup.
“(I told the boys), we just play our brand of game, if things were not working out, just put in your best effort. That’s what we did tonight,” said Elastopainters coach Yeng Guiao.
With the Elastopainters struggling with their offensive rebounds and with their turnovers that evening, they relied on a 7-0 run which allowed them to fight their way out of a 71-77 deficit near the end of the third period.
Caracut’s trey at the end of third period ROS taking charge with a 78-77 edge going in to the last period.
“Dun din naming nakuha ang first game naming. So, we just played our brand of game,” added Guiao.
The Elastopainters drew eight points from Caelan Tiongson in the last quarter, and he led a 19-5 run which saw ROS pulling away, 96-82, with 3:54 left.
The Elastopainters’ second straight over the Road Warriors put them up against the TNT Tropang 5G in the best-of-7 semis.
Earlier, Kelly Williams scored two charities in the last two seconds, and TNT Tropang 5G escaped with an 80-79 thriller over Magnolia in their do-or-die game
In the other semis matchup, it will San Miguel Beer against Barangay Ginebra Gin Kings with the best-of-seven semifinals beginning Wednesday at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.
The win-once Gin Kings banked on a big third-quarter blast to ease out Converge, 88-80, on Friday.
