Less than a week after blowing a 15-point fourth quarter lead to lose, the Painters played with enough character Friday night to hand Coca-Cola a 91-80 defeat and get back on track in the PBA Fiesta Conference eliminations at the Araneta Coliseum.

“I think we showed our character after our loss to (Barangay) Ginebra (last Saturday),” Rain or Shine coach Caloy Garcia told scribes. “I think it’s very difficult (for any team) to bounce back after a loss like that. We did a pretty good job out there tonight.”

The Painters pounced on a lethargic start by the Tigers to establish leads of as many as 17 points before playing with enough intensity to hold off Coca-Cola the rest of the way and win for the third time in five outings.

Rain or Shine held the Tigers to just 11 points in the second period and to 30 for the first half as James Penny, who played with a freshly-stitched wound above the right eyebrow and a huge lump in his forehead caused by an accidental elbow two nights ago, struggled.

Penny then took off the protective mask and nearly succeeded in almost singlehandedly leading the Tigers back in the game. But it wasn’t enough as Coca-Cola went on to take its second defeat in six outings to drop out of a first place tie.

And coach Bo Perasol had a ready explanation on why his squad played so bad, considering how fine they were when they handed Derby Ace a first defeat two nights ago despite playing with Penny from the final five minutes on.

“We went into the game with a disruption in our mentality,” Perasol, who has infused an attacking mentality in the team he started handling near the end of the Philippine Cup, explained.

“We knew yesterday (Thursday) that James wasn’t going to play, so every one was thinking that we would lose this game easily,” he continued. “And when he played, every one was now thinking that: ‘Hey, James is going to bail us out after all.

“Even I and the rest of the coaching staff were disrupted. And the true test of a winner is to play through all these.”

Penny scored 19 of his 34 markers in the third period, highlighting it with a thunderous tomahawk jam off two Rain or Shine defenders which made it 49-53 heading into the final 4:40 of the period.

But that proved to be the closest that the Tigers could creep in as Coca-Cola’s locals never got to find their marks. Dennis Espino finished with 11 and Gary David had just 10, his lowest production in the tournament where he leads everyone in scoring.

Those 10 David points were actually half of his average coming into the game, and this didn’t escape the attention of Perasol, who didn’t actually blame David for the loss, but the entire local crew for failing to step up and becoming dependent on Penny.

“He couldn’t do it on his own,” Perasol said of Penny. “We were telling each other that we need to overcome obstacles and find ways to win the game (had Penny not played). But those were just words in our mouths we didn’t back up with action.”

Meanwhile, Talk ‘N  Text picked up a second straight win later in the night after getting double figures from six players in a 95-85 destruction of Barako Coffee.

Mac Cardona scattered 17 points, Ranidel De Ocampo had 16 and Shawn Daniels had 14 points and 16 boards as the Tropang Texters led from start to finish and were never really threatened.

Barako Coffee import Sammy Monroe was even thrown out in the third period after planting an elbow on the head of Mike Yee and the Coffee Masters are in danger of playing all-Filipino in their next game after Monroe was thrown out because of a Flagrant Foul 2 call.

The Texters climbed into a tie with the Tigers, while the Coffee Masters took a fifth straight loss flush on the chin to slide down all alone to the cellar.

Monroe still led the Coffee Masters with 17 points in just 28 minutes, with Al Vergara shooting 16 like Yousif Aljamal and Rob Wainwright finishing with 13.