RAIN or Shine coach Yeng is known as a fiery tactician–and sometimes, controversial–but there’s no denying that he’s a player’s coach who has big faith in his charges.
“I didn’t lose hope but, of course, sometimes you’ll really get frustrated. You can see the team’s potential, but we can’t translate it into game,” Guiao said. “We had good practices, we can’t say anything about our players’ good work ethics, very professional and hard working.
“I expected what we do in practice will translate into our games (but didn’t),” he added.
Guiao spoke after the Elasto Painters tripped the NLEX Road Warriors 120-104 six nights back that clinched for them a quarterfinals slot in the PBA Philippine Cup.
To say Rain or Shine hurdled lots of adversities in its campaign in the season-ending tilt is an understatement.
The Painters began the conference with a 0-4 mark but won six of their last seven outings to wind up with a 6-5 record, good for fifth.
Along with Guiao’s faith, patience also did wonders for Rain or Shine.
‘We just kept our patience and now we’re reaping the rewards,” Guiao said. “Maybe it wasn’t the right time for us at the start. Last conference we started 0-5 but we’re able to recover.
“This time, we started 0-4 before rallying back so it showed that we did improve a bit.”
Top seed and defending champion San Miguel Beer, which ended with a 10-1 card after the eliminations, will enjoy a twice-to-beat advantage against either the NorthPort or Terrafirma who clashed in a do-or-die tiff for the final berth in the Last Eight at press time last night.
No. 2 Ginebra, also armed with a win-once incentive, will face seventh seed Magnolia.
Third-ranked Meralco will collide with No. 6 NLEX in a best-of-3 quarterfinals series, while the fourth seed TNT Tropang Giga will square off with the No. 5 Painters in the other showdown.
For now, Guiao is hoping their riveting run will continue.
“Let’s see where our fate will take us,” he said.
