B-Meg ties series as Rain or Shine loses Paul Lee to injury

After equalizing the best-of-seven series for the PBA Governors’ Cup with an 85-80 victory over Rain or Shine last night, the road indeed seems rosy for B-Meg the rest of the way.
Rain or Shine could lose its best local player for the remaining five games of the bruising series, and coach Tim Cone of B-Meg had made it clear that he wants to see the super rookie back on the floor as soon as possible.
And while coach Yeng Guiao of Rain or Shine has also admitted that Lee would be a huge loss, he got everyone’s attention later on by declaring what no coach in the recent past had dared do.
“We will still win this series, with or without Paul Lee,” Guiao said, somewhat reprising what the great Ron Jacobs said when he was coaching Northern Consolidated in the 1985 Open Conference.
“I still feel good about this game. Some things just didn’t fall our way,” Guiao said. “The biggest thing was that we lost our best local player, and from the looks of it, it’s quite serious.
“The series is 1-1 and we have five games left. We are not discouraged. We will win this series, with or without Paul.”
James Yap hit a key running one-handed jumper from deep right corner with 2:42 remaining for 78-74 before Lee fell down in a heap 20 seconds later, holding his left shoulder which was first dislocated last June 17 against Barako Bull.
The injury was so severe that Lee had to be carried off the floor by his teammates. Even his mother rushed to the Rain or Shine bench to apply ice on his shoulder.
And while all of those happened in the sidelines, the Llamados busied themselves in burying the Painters with Yap actually shooting four of his nine fourth quarter points in a sizzling stretch that held off Rain or Shine.
Yap, a former two-time MVP who is in the thick of things to win a third, then put the game on ice with 15.6 seconds remaining when he nailed a turnaround jumper falling away for 82-78.
The break after that shot gave the league’s medical team the chance to take a gurney into the floor and finally take Lee to the ambulance. He was taken to the Cardinal Santos Medical Center.
Guiao, though, didn’t know the exact condition of Lee as of this writing, though he admitted that “from the looks of it, it’s very serious.” Marcus Blakely led the Llamados with 28 points, 17 of them coming in the first half as B-Meg overhauled an early eight-point deficit to forge ahead at the break 44-41.
Yap had 24 and PJ Simon, after shooting just nine in an 80-91 loss in the series-opener, finished with 16.
Jamelle Cornley, who was named as the Best Import before tip-off, led the Painters with 18 points and 15 rebounds, with Jeff Chan adding 12.
Lee still went on to finish with 11 points, nine of them in the first period.