MANILA: Too bad, Kelly Williams - literally - wasn’t able to see how good his teammates were last night.
Williams was helped off the floor at the end of the third quarter because of an eye injury, but even without the reigning MVP, Sta. Lucia hung tough to deal Rain or Shine an 88-85 defeat in the PBA Philippine Cup eliminations at the Ynares Center.
Already without Ryan Reyes, the Realtors also lost Williams because of a freak accident. But instead of rolling over, Sta. Lucia fought it out tooth-and-nail with the younger Elasto Painters to snatch third place at 5-4.
“Our defense really stepped up tonight,” coach Boyet Fernandez later said. “The win was made even nicer because of what happened to Kelly. Hopefully, we can get him back for our next game (on Wednesday against San Miguel).”
The 6-foot-7 Williams was accidentally poked in the right eye by Jay-R Reyes in the waning seconds of the third period which left a small clot and made Williams unable to see. But the Realtors scored when they needed, stopped Rain or Shine’s guns in the stretch and made charities when they had to to pound out the scrambling win and push the Painters to a 5-5 card.
Sta. Lucia played zone all night, giving the Painters open three-point shots all game.
It was a gamble which Fernandez said they would live or die with, and an opening which the Painters could not capitalize on to go down in flames against a depleted team they were favored to beat.
Rain or Shine took a total of 42 attempts from beyond the arc, converting just eight for a pathetic 19 percent clip. Mark Isip led the Painters with 23 points, his career high, but Gabe Norwood was good for only seven.
Paolo Mendoza hit 16 points to lead the Realtors before he was thrown out for the first time in his career entering the final two minutes because of a second technical foul. Rookie Kelvin Gregorio backed him up with 13 points and eight rebounds. Williams had just three points in 26 minutes. He did pluck down 13 rebounds to lead everyone in that department for the night.
James Yap scored 28 points and Kerby Raymundo hit seven of his 14 in the final three minutes as the duo hurt their national coach by leading Purefoods to an 80-72 victory over Red Bull in the first game.
Yap scattered 13 of his total in the third period and Raymundo came back into the game in the final eight minutes to sting the Barako and lift the Tender Juicy Giants to their fifth win in 10 games.
