MANILA: Rain or Shine coach Caloy Garcia still doesn’t want to celebrate, even if he had put the team in a different plateau. Safe to say that he and his Elasto Painters are looking to scale even greater heights.

“As of now, we cannot celebrate yet, though we’ve never been in this position before,” Garcia told reporters, moments after an 80-79 squeaker over defending champion Sta. Lucia that gave the Elasto Painters a new milestone in their PBA existence.

The Painters moved within a breath of making it past the eliminations for the first time in franchise history, and winning for the eighth time in 14 matches sealed Rain or Shine’s finest performance in a season since entering the league three years ago. “We would still like to take it one game at a time, starting with Purefoods (tomorrow),” Garcia said. “We still have four games to play, and we will not relax until we’ve played all of those games.” Rob Wainwright hit a free throw in the final 26.4 seconds that shattered the game’s final deadlock at 79 before the Painters played tough enough defense that forced Paolo Mendoza to put up a wayward three-pointer at the buzzer.

Rain or Shine never won more than a combined seven games in each of its first two seasons in the PBA and its eighth win last night at the Araneta Coliseum guaranteed that the Painters won’t be finishing alone in the bottom of the standings. Matter of fact, Garcia now has a realistic shot at bagging a top two spot, hence, an automatic spot in the Final Four.

“That’s a target that we now have,” Garcia said. “But still, we would want to take it a game at time. Good thing about it is that, considering where we are now, we have a shot at that (outright semifinal slot).” Jay-R Reyes led the Painters with 25 points and 14 rebounds, and Gabe Norwood added 19 points, nine boards, five assists and three steals in another workmanlike effort that helped the Painters immensely.

Reigning MVP Kelly Williams, after a career-low two points in a win over Alaska , erupted for a season best 31, 20 of them in the final two periods. But he couldn’t rescue the Realtors from dropping to a level 7-7 card, now out of the magic circle of five teams that will earn outright playoff berths.

The Realtors have plenty of time to come up with the game-winning play after that Wainwright free throw. But Norman Gonzales got botched up in their first attempt. Sta. Lucia retained ball possession with Reyes touching it last, but Mendoza threw up that shot that hit the top of the backboard though he fell while taking the shot.

Meanwhile, Barangay Ginebra, which played without starting point guard Jay-Jay Helterbrand, won a fourth straight game and climbed into a tie for fourth after outlasting Red Bull, 83-76, in the first game.

Ronald Tubid scored 15 points, had 11 rebounds and three assists in helping the Gin Kings rise to 7-6, now tied with Talk ‘N Tex and also with a mathematical chance of gaining an outright playoff berth.

“We’re getting lucky, we’re still in striking distance of the top teams,” Ginebra mentor Jong Uichico said. “Hopefully we could sustain the kind of game we’re playing right now and make a serious run at it.”

The Kings, who are already without Mark Caguioa, blew a 17-point lead, which they established twice in the third quarter, the last was at 64-47 on a surprise jumper by relief center Alex Crisano. But the Barako rallied back behind former Ginebra player Mike Holper, Celino Cruz, Warren Ybanes, Jojo Duncil and Cyrus Baguio, whose three-point play off a foul from Junthy Valenzuela trimmed the lead to 70-73, heading into the final 5:46.

Ginebra, however, answered with a decisive 10-2 run highlighted by a three-pointer from Junthy Valenzuela and Tubid to make it 83-72 with 1:15 to play.

The loss was the seventh straight for the Barako in a 3-10 card.