Win gives E-Painters, Texters twice-to-beat

MANILA, Philippines - Rain or Shine closed out its elimination-round stint in style, delivering its most explosive performance to rip Kia and 7-foot-3 import PJ Ramos, 119-99, and claim the top seeding in the coming PBA Commissioner’s Cup playoffs at the Smart Araneta Coliseum last night.

The Elasto Painters left nothing to chance in their pursuit of one of the two twice-to-beat bonuses, building a huge 27-point lead right in the first half and keeping control throughout.

In a blazing 6-1 (win-loss) finish in the elims, the Elasto Painters topped the preliminary round with an 8-3 overall mark, matching their feat in the 2012 Governors Cup where they went all the way to clinch their first and only PBA crown so far.

Later in the night, Talk n Text import Ivan Johnson sparkled with personal PBA bests of nine three-pointers and 47 points as the Tropang Texters thwarted the Alaska Milk Aces, 101-93, to also seal a twice-to-beat edge as second seed.

Purefoods Star, also with an 8-3 closing mark, settled for third place and a spot in the best-of-three quarterfinals due to an inferior quotient.

Rain or Shine ended with 1.025 quotient points as against Talk n Text’s 1.01 and Purefoods’ .969.

 “For us, One or Two is good. The important thing is gaining the twice-to-beat advantage. We don’t care who we play as long as we have that advantage,” said Rain or Shine coach Yeng Guiao.

“By virtue of quotient, it’s not really like an unquestionable accomplishment. We’re tied with some other teams but we’ll take it. We’ll take motivation from that. It will give us encouragement going to our playoff preparations,” Guiao also said.

Rain or Shine methodically tore Kia apart, putting the Carnival in danger of missing the post-elims play with a 4-7 mark.

Kia will  bank on quotient if they reach the Last Eight.

But whatever happens, the Columbian Autocar Corp. franchise has already made a big improvement from the Philippine Cup where the Carnival failed to win a single game.