San Mig, Rain or Shine post easy victories

MANILA: The rare tripleheader in the PBA had a ho-hum ending, with San Mig Coffee ripping Barangay Ginebra and highlighting the troubles inside the Gin Kings’ camp.
San Mig held the Gin Kings to eight measly first quarter points, scooting away with impunity from the second period on to post a 78-68 victory for a piece of second place in the Philippine Cup before a boisterous crowd of close to 20,000 at the Araneta Coliseum.
Joe Devance scored 18 points, including two straight triples early in the fourth period that completely broke the backs of the Kings, who tumbled to their fifth straight defeat that fanned rumors of a coaching staff shakeup.
San Mig rose to 5-2 in the standings, the same slate now being held by Rain or Shine, which was also unrelenting against Meralco in posting a 106-81 victory in the second game.
“We played a great defensive game tonight and there were times that Ginebra shot themselves in the foot with missed layups and such,” San Mig’s Tim Cone told reporters later. “That happens in the midst of a down time, when you lose some games.” James Yap scored 14 points and Peter June Simon had 13 for the Mixers, whose previous two victories all came by small margins.
But the Mixers were so sharp last night, quickly erasing an early 1-8 deficit by rattling off 14 unanswered points to end the first quarter and assume control they never relinquished the rest of the way.
What stood out as the game of the day was Barako Bull’s 95-94 conquest of Globalport where Ronald Tubid hit the game-winning short jumper with 18 seconds left off a broken play.
The Energy broke a three-game losing streak and rose to 3-5, now good for a share of sixth place.
Enrico Villanueva tossed in 18 points that went with 11 rebounds even as Mark Yee led all Globalport shooters with 20 with former two-time MVP Willie Miller scattering 17 points that went with eight assists and six boards.
The Elasto Painters, the reigning Governors’ Cup champions, got 23 points from Jireh Ibanes and shot close to 49% from the field.
Rain or Shine’s defense starved Meralco’s guards in the first two periods with the Bolts scoring just 28 for the first half to trail by 13.
The Painters then turned up the heat in the third, shooting 39 points to lead by as many as 30 before padding this to as huge as 33 in the fourth period.
Yeng Guiao then cleared his bench as Mac Cardona scored 11 garbage points in the fourth to lead Meralco with 20 points.
“Meralco is one of the hottest teams in the league and I am really surprised that we beat them in the manner that we did,” Guiao said.
after dealing the Bolts their third loss in seven game. “I was looking forward to a tight endgame struggle.
“But I think early on, we just got our rhythm both on offense and defense,” he continued. “We broke away in the third quarter. We were ready to play the guard match-ups with Sol (Mercado), Ronjay (Buenafe) and Mac-Mac (Cardona).”