Rain or Shine head coach Caloy Garcia rued the Elasto Painters’ poor fourth quarter showing that thwarted their bid of going up 3-0 over Magnolia Hotshots in their 2019 PBA Philippine Cup semifinals series Tuesday night.
After being impressive in the best-of-seven series’ first two games, the Elasto Painters appeared to have been deciphered by the Hotshots in Game Three, so much so that they got held to just a lowly 11 points in the final quarter.
Magnolia, meanwhile, had 28 en route to the 92-82 victory.
“I think we just have to learn from this loss, especially in the fourth quarter, we scored only eleven points,” Garcia said after the match. “I think we have to be more aggressive in attacking the basket. We couldn’t make the shots today.
“There was a time that we were down by ten in the beginning and we were able to fight back and take the lead and we started hitting our shots. But ayun nga, pagdating sa fourth, medyo hindi na kami nakakatira nang maayos,” he added.
“We just have to find ways to win it on the fourth.”
Garcia also lamented that the Elasto Painters got stunned by Ian Sangalang, who scored all of his 16 points in the second half, including eight in his team’s last 14 points where the Hotshots closed out strong from a 71-all deadlock.
“They went to Sangalang in the end and we had no answer to stop him in the fourth. He scored twelve points in the fourth quarter. I think that was the game, when they went to Sangalang, we couldn’t contain him,” he said as Sangalang also collected 11 rebounds.
“Probably we’ll find ways to at least limit Sangalang.”
Still, Garcia expressed confidence on his chargers’ ability to bounce back, especially now that the league will head into a Lenten break which the decorated mentor said will be of help as they aim to recover before Game Four on April 22.
“We’re still up in the series 2-1. We still remain confident that we’re going to bounce back.”
