Rain or Shine outplays San Mig Coffee on Bowles return

Denzel Bowles’ much-awaited return to the San Mig Coffee lineup drew a respectable crowd last night.
The way he left the floor spoke a lot of how his first game back in almost a year in the Philippine Basketball Association went down.
Rain or Shine gave Bowles a rowdy welcome as the Elasto Painters played with all fluidity to rip the Mixers apart, 93-65, to keep the defending champions winless in three games in the PBA Commissioner’s Cup eliminations at the Mall of Asia Arena.
After shooting just 12 points and grabbing 14 rebounds in 34 minutes, Bowles left the floor after the final buzzer with his towel over his head, failing to rescue the Mixers from their miserable start that put them in the company of Barangay Ginebra at the cellar.
“It was just San Mig’s off night and we got what I was hoping for and that Denzel Bowles not being in good shape,” said Rain or Shine coach Yeng Guiao.
The Painters won a second straight game and rose to 2-1 despite never seeing the need to push 7-foot-3 import Bruno Sundov to the limit as the locals did most of the damage after the halftime break.
From 36-31 at the half, the Elasto Painters broke away in the third quarter and never let up, posting leads of as many as 24 points before leading by as large as 34 late in the game.
Bowles, who won the Best Import award here last season, was pulled out with still over six minutes left as he was clearly still out of synch despite jetting in a week ago coming from a pro tournament in China.
Jervy Cruz, a prime candidate for the Most Improved Player of the year award this early, paced the Painters with 16 points in just 13 minutes and rookie Chris Tiu added 15 markers in 19 minutes on the floor to downplay Rain or Shine’s efficiency.
Tiu also had eight assists.
Sundov, the tallest import to ever play in the PBA, had 14 points and 11 rebounds and was cooling his heels on the bench from the halfway point of the third quarter on.
Guiao had a chance to clear his bench with under five minutes left and the result was still a thing of beauty as his reserves built a 93-59 lead that assured the Mixers of their worst loss in the tournament to date.
San Mig has lost its last two games by an average of 26.5 points. Its first loss was just by four and they played it without an import as original choice Matt Rogers was downed by food poisoning on the eve of opening night.
Meanwhile, Barako Bull climbed into a tie with idle Petron Blaze for second place after coming from behind to nip Air21, 91-86.
The Energy battled back from 10 points down going into the last five minutes by dropping a crippling 17-0 bomb anchored on the outside shooting of Josh Urbiztondo.
Barako Bull thus improved to 3-1 and showed great character not only in coming back from a huge deficit but also bouncing back from a sorry loss to Alaska last week in a battle among league leaders.
“The character of this team is that they fight until the end,” Serbian coach Rajko Toroman said. “We found a way to win this game. We are still growing up (learning), but at the end of the day, it’s a very sweet win.” Urbiztondo hit three triples on the way to 13 fourth quarter points, and all of those came at the time that the Energy fell behind, 71-81.
The heady point guard made just two points in the first three periods before taking over at the crunch.
Urbiztondo was actually made to stay in the game because Jonas Villanueva injured his right hamstring late in the third quarter, forcing Toroman to squeeze the best out of him.
“This is maybe the most important win for us because of difficult circumstances (injury to Villanueva),” Toroman said. “Josh didn’t play a good first three quarters, but he was one of the best in the end.” Just in his second game back to active duty, swingman JC Intal finished with 16 points with the veteran Danny Seigle contributing 10 points in just 21 minutes off the bench for Barako Bull.
Michael Dunigan led the Express with 30 points, 19 rebounds and two blocks, but Air21 still fell to its second straight loss for 1-2.