COACH Yeng Guiao hopes Rain or Shine would be able to keep the pace up against a San Mig Super Coffee side that likes to slow things down when the Mixers and the Elasto Painters collide in Game Two of the PLDT myDSL-PBA Philippine Cup Finals on Sunday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
The Elasto Painters survived the Mixers' fourth quarter surge, relying on Paul Lee's get-away bank shot with nine-tenths of a second left en route to an 83-80 Game One win.
Rain or Shine now goes for a 2-0 series cushion against San Mig in their 4:30 p.m. encounter.
"For us, it is important to keep the game fast, but we also feel that the longer the series takes, the more advantage we have," Guiao said heading into Game Two.
The fiery mentor said defensively, Rain or Shine team will have to make sure they move sharper to avoid giving San Mig free trips to the foul line.
"They (Mixers) just got too many free throws. There were too many free throws given to the other side and we need to avoid that in our next game," noted Guiao, who is eyeing his first-ever All-Filipino title in
his 24-year PBA coaching career.
"I don't know if we just got careless with fouling or there were just some miscommunication on defense that forced us to get into bad positions," he added.
In Game One, Rain or Shine had 26 fouls, compared to San Mig's 16. The Elasto Painters' penchant for fouling sent the Mixers to the foul line 30 times.
Fortunately for Rain or Shine, the Mixers could only make 15, which allowed the Painters to escape with the three-point win in the opener.
Meanwhile, San Mig coach Tim Cone is confident that the Mixers could engage a see-saw match up with Rain or Shine as long as they hit their free throws and get key contributions from their second unit.
"I think we can play a better game than we played (in Game One). And hopefully, I can coach a better game down the series," said Cone, who took the blame in the series-opening loss after consuming his last two timeouts in the last 22 seconds, forcing the Mixers to give up a technical foul when they called for a timeout when Lee made the shot with 0.9 seconds to go in the game.
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