MANILA, 28 October 2006 — Yeng Guiao knows his basketball — and the chance that his Red Bull squad has for the remainder of the PBA Philippine Cup.

The mercurial coach talked with a lot of gloom last night, this, despite the fact that his Barako came charging back from 17 points down to nip newcomer Welcoat, 80-77, and rejoin the thick of the elimination round fight.

“We’re lucky to escape with this win,” Guiao said, just a few minutes after the victory gave Red Bull a share of second place at 4-2. “Definitely, we are expecting a lot more difficult games for us, especially when we play the teams considered as the top contenders.

“But, we’ll take a win anyway we can,” he added. “Ang importante ay manalo (the important thing is to win).”

Guiao literally had to squeeze the best out from his players, who played without much intensity and a lot of hesitation for the second straight game, or after the squad dealt away Lordy Tugade for virtually nothing in exchange from San Miguel.

“I wouldn’t want to think that way,” Guiao explained. “The thing that’s happening is that no one has stepped up to replace Lordy. But I wouldn’t want anyone coming to me and telling me that he will play like Lordy.”

Carlo Sharma, a lightly-regarded rookie big man out of collegiate power La Salle, scored a career-high 20 points and grabbed 11 rebounds to provide the muscle sorely missing from Red Bull.

Mick Pennisi helped the Bulls gain ground in the second quarter by shooting 13 of his topscoring 22 points.

Jun-Jun Cabatu matched Pennisi’s total also for his career-high, but the Dragons still fell to 2-4 after two crucial blunders inside the final three minutes. Guiao did not talk with a lot of optimism because no one has stepped up to take the place of Lordy Tugade, whom the team dealt away in a blockbuster trade to San Miguel just last week.

The veterans who are supposed to be consistent have been struggling, most notably Enrico Villanueva, Larry Fonacier and guards Celino Cruz and Topex Robinson.

Villanueva finished with only four points and the same number of turnovers, Fonacier, last year’s top rookie and the perfect Tugade clone, had only two points in 17 minutes. Robinson and Cruz played so bad that Warren Ybanez played for 24 minutes in orchestrating the Red Bull offense.

Red Bull worked all game in chipping away at that deficit, with Pennisi nailing a triple at the 3:56 mark to forge the game’s last tie at 74 before unanswered baskets by Sharma, Junethy Valenzuela and Rich Alvarez gave the Bulls an 80-74 lead.

Jojo Tangkay, after cutting that six-point lead in half with a trey for 77-80, had his seventh miss from beyond trifectaville in the next Welcoat offensive to do the Dragons in.

Meanwhile, Purefoods roared to a third straight victory later, turning back Alaska 82-78, behind a brilliant end game and the magnificent play of third year guard Peter June Simon.

Simon, who first played professional ball for the Davao Eagles in the MBA, scored 21 points, most of them coming at the time when the Giants frustrated the Aces from building big leads.

The defending champion Chunkee Giants improved to 4-3 with the win, matching the longest winning streak in the tournament while announcing their return to championship form after opening up with a 1-3 slate.

Alaska, on the other hand, slumped to its fourth straight loss and dropped deeper alone in the cellar with a 1-5 card.