Pressure is slowly mounting on Rain or Shine as it seeks to sustain its remarkable winning streak when it battles TNT Tropang Giga in the resumption of the Philippine Basketball Association Commissioner’s Cup on Friday.
Elasto Painters coach Yeng Guiao admitted that sustaining their four-game winning run is not easy, especially if pressure starts to creep in on their players.
“That’s one of the most difficult things to handle when you’re building a winning streak. On top of that, it is the pressure that is developing,” Guiao told Daily Tribune in a conversation.
“But we’re okay with it. We had our share of streaks on the losing end and now, we’re building a winning run. The most important thing is what’s at stake in the game and that’s an automatic quarterfinal berth.”
Rain or Shine and TNT are tied for seventh to eighth places with 4-5
win-loss slate. A victory by the Elasto Painters will guarantee them a seat in the next round regardless of the outcome of their final elimination round game against Converge on 14 January.
A win by the Elasto Painters coupled by a victory by NLEX against Converge will relegate the Road Warriors and the Tropang Giga to the eighth to ninth spots. Should TNT and NLEX end up tied at the end of the elimination round, they will clash in a sudden-death duel.
For Guiao, winning over TNT will help them avoid any complications.
“That’s the path we want to go through. So, this is more like a must-win situation for us against TNT,” he said, adding that he is not worried about the holiday break halting the momentum brought by their winning run. After all, it was the break that their players needed.
