Jay R. Gotera Saudi Gazette MANILA — Breaking out of his scoring slump, Paul Lee scored on two crucial three pointers and a fast-break layup in the endgame to bail out the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters against the San Mig Super Coffee Mixers, 86-83, Friday night in the PLDT myDSL-PBA Philippine Cup at the Smart Araneta Coliseum. Lee finished with a career-high 26 points, including 5-of-9 from three-point range, to lead the Elasto Painters to their fourth win in five matches, good for solo second in the standings and just half a game behind the pace-setting Petron Blaze Boosters (4-0). Jeff Chan, with 11 points, was the only other double-digit scorer for Rain or Shine in a show of balanced offensive might. The Elasto Painters imposed their will on the skidding San Mig Coffee right from the start. But the Mixers refused to surrender without a fight. They managed to cut Rain or Shine's lead to just four points, 38-34, at halftime. The Mixers even took the lead, 59-57, late in the third quarter. But the Elasto Pointers quickly regained their bearing and began padding their lead once again. The Mixers made their last-ditch stand, cutting the lead to just 75-74 with less than four minutes left. Lee then buried a buzzer-beating three-pointer off the backboard to stem San Mig Coffee's final uprising. Mark Barroca led the Mixers with 23 points, six rebounds and five assists, while PJ Simon added 18. Marc Pingris finished with a double-double of 12 points and 12 rebounds. Coming off a knee injury, Joe Devance played his first game of the season for the, finishing with 11 points and four rebounds. Despite the stellar performances of these four Mixers, they failed to stop their team from tumbling to their fourth defeat in five games, falling to solo ninth place, just a notch higher from tail-ender Air21 Express (0-5). San Mig Coffee again missed the services of ace gunner James Yap for the second straight game due to inflammation on his right elbow. GlobalPort 93, Meralco 89 Sol Mercado came off the bench to explode for 33 points to lead the GlobalPort Batang Pier to a pulsating come-from-behind 93-89 victory against the Meralco Bols in the second match of Friday's double-header. Jay Washington added 27 points as the Batang Pier snapped a two-game losing streak to improve to a 2-3 win-loss card, forging a three-way tie for sixth to eighth places with the Bolts and the idle Alaska Aces. Mercado and Washington were nearly unstoppable in the second half as the duo accounted for 35 of GlobalPort's 56-point production. Despite playing with a crippled frontline, Meralco was in control of the match in the early going, even taking a nine-point lead at halftime, 46-37. But the tides of battle shifted dramatically in the second half as the much taller Batang Pier began finding ways to exploit Meralco's weakness inside the paint. Rookie RR Garcia added 12 points for GlobalPort while Jondan Salvador spearheaded Meralco's control of the boards, snaring 14 rebounds. Overall, the Batang Pier handily won the battle of the boards against the Bolts, 52-37. The Batang Pier won despite a sub-par performance by their top rookie guard Terrence Romeo who could only squeeze out four points. Gary David and Mike Cortez led Meralco with 18 points apiece, while Sunday Salvacion and Jared Dillinger added 15 and 13 respectively. Games Saturday: Barako Bull vs. Air21 and Alaska Aces vs. Petron Blaze.
