Rain or Shine handed an incomplete Hong Kong Eastern its first loss following a convincing 99-81 victory to break into the PBA Season 49 Commissioner’s Cup winners’ circle on Wednesday night at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium.
The Elasto Painters took control of the game early before pulling away in the fourth quarter to chalk up win no. 1 in the conference.
It was a solid bounce-back after absorbing a 121-111 defeat at the hands of Meralco in their opener.
“We played really good defense against a bigger team,” said head coach Yeng Guiao as they held HK to only 35.2-percent shooting from the floor, including a measly 7-of-20 clip from the three-point area. “I think ‘yun ang crucial.”
Deon Thompson turned in a solid debut with 21 points, 15 rebounds, three assists, three steals, and two blocks to set the pace for RoS, finally seeing action after a slight documentation issue forced him to sit out versus the Bolts.
“Just very happy to be able to play. Most importantly, really happy that we were able to get the win,” said the 2009 US NCAA champion with North Carolina.
Santi Santillan finished with 18 points, spiked by three triples, and five rebounds. Keith Datu and Caelan Tiongson added 10 markers each.
Santillan himself was key in the breakaway, nailing a trey to spark the decisive 10-0 run – capped by another three courtesy of Datu – to build an 85-68 advantage approaching the midway mark of the deciding chapter.
They’d go on to lead by as many as 23 points, 95-72, following an and-one play by Shaun Ildefonso with less than four minutes left in the ball game.
Rain or Shine would go on to enjoy a double celebration as Beau Belga scored five points to enter the league’s 5,000-point club, becoming the 98th player (93rd local) to reach the milestone, per PBA stats chief Fidel Mangonon III.
The Elasto Painters will look to make it back-to-back wins when they battle San Miguel on Tuesday, December 10, 7:30 PM at the FilOil EcoOil Centre.
Leading Eastern, on the other hand, was Cameron Clark, who scored 30 points and 12 rebounds. He carried much of the load in a game where they missed lead guard Glen Yang because of passport issues.
Cheung Lin Yung and Sheikh Sulaiman were the only other double-digit scorers for the team of Coach Mensur Bajramovic with 11 points each.
Still adjusting to the rigors of juggling their hectic schedule competing in and out of Hong Kong, the visiting team has now fallen to 2-1 in the standings.
Eastern returns to action this Friday as it welcomes the debuting TNT Tropang Giga at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium as well.
Game time is at 7:30 PM.
The Scores:
Rain or Shine 99 – Thompson 21, Santillan 18, Datu 10, Tiongson 10, Nocum 8, Ildefonso 8, Caracut 7, Belga 5, Clarito 4, Lemetti 3, Asistio 3, Demnusis 2.
Hong Kong Eastern 81 – Clark 30, Cheung 11, Sulaiman 11, Cao 9, Blankley 7, Lam 6, Zhu 5, Guinchard 2, Chan 0, Leung 0, Pok 0, Xu 0.
Quarterscores: 24-18, 43-34, 70-64, 99-81.
