Now donning the label of a champion, Rain or Shine played like one and brought down the most feared squad in the PBA Philippine Cup like it was an everyday thing.

Playing without their biggest star, the Elasto Painters last night took the full measure of Petron Blaze and massacred the Boosters, 102-86, to post the first upset of the young season-opening tournament at the Araneta Coliseum.

The Painters broke away in the third period by dropping 32 points on the Petron defense before totally blowing the Boosters away in the stretch.

Jeff Chan scored 20 points and three others tossed in 13 each in a balanced scoring attack that more than made up for the absence of Rookie of the Year Paul Lee and the exit of No. 7 pick Chris Tiu late in the second period.

Lee will be out for majority of the tournament after going under the knife to repair a dislocated left shoulder, while Tiu limped out near the end of the first half after pulling his left hamstring.

Tiu, who was supposed to take over while Lee is recuperating, never returned, but the absence of a true point guard in the Rain or Shine roster did not hamper the Painters’ dizzying third quarter effort.

“As I said before the game, this is the best time to play Petron,” coach Yeng Guiao told scribes. “They are a team still in transition and they’ll be a lot dangerous in another three to four games.

“We were lucky we were their first foes,” he continued in trying to downplay the victory. “And we will still be playing them another time (in the eliminations) and things could change.”

Jun Mar Fajardo, the top overall choice in the Draft, made his anticipated debut and was made to literally bleed for his points by the Painters.

The 6-foot-10 prodigy from Cebu suffered a slight cut in his left eyebrow after getting entangled with Ryan Arana and Jervy Cruz with less than a minute gone in the fourth quarter.

But that was the least of his struggles for the night.

Rain or Shine effectively bottled up Fajardo all game long and held the highly-regarded rookie to just nine points and 12 rebounds.

Joseph Yeo and Arwind Santos led the Boosters with 16 points each and a combined 16 rebounds, and the usual heavy contributor like Jay Washington struggled to shoot only seven points in just 19 minutes.

Olsen Racela made his professional coaching debut together with team consultant Rajko Toroman, who was very much involved in shuffling of the players for the Boosters.

Meanwhile, Barako Bull joined Rain or Shine and idle Barangay Ginebra San Miguel as early leaders after pounding out a 90-87 decision against Air21 Express earlier.

Ronald Tubid scored four of the Energy Coffee’s final five points and finished with 19 markers.