ALWAYS, nothing compares with the sweet taste of victory. The recent win by Rain or Shine is no exception.
But if you look at it a little further, if you just try to give it a second look, there is another aspect to it that absolutely tugs at the heart.
It is that Yeng Guiao had badly needed it. Had Rain or Shine lost it, Guiao could yet be the most devastated sportsman this side of the sporting globe.
Had the result been the other way around—Alaska the champ instead of Rain or Shine—Guiao might have resigned as Painters coach and all of the hoops world would have unabashedly wept with him.
And Guiao was so tantalizingly close to that.
Up 3-0 in the best-of-seven Finals of the Oppo-PBA Commissioner’s Cup, Guiao suddenly saw his Painters up by a mere 3-2. Back-to-back RoS losses had made Alaska a sudden threat at turning the tables on Rain or Shine.
Another loss happening in Game 6 could complete an Alaska comeback previously not given a serious thought of.
But as fate would have it, and luckily for Guiao, too, Game 6 went Rain or Shine’s way. And what a win it was.
Grimly determined to end it all in the sixth game to avoid going through the grinding pressure of a Game 7, Guiao gave strict marching orders for his men to unleash all their might early on.
With all guns ablaze at blastoff, Guiao’s Painters zoomed to a quick 23-point margin—never looking back after that.
The last Alaska scare came when the Aces inched to within 10 points going to the third quarter.
But the Painters quickly stopped the uprising with a counter offensive that immediately restored safe leads of 17 and 19 points repeatedly.
It was Rain or Shine’s second title since 2012 and Guiao’s seventh PBA crown.
But if Alex Compton’s coaching career suffered yet another major blow—that was his second straight Finals loss this season—the win somehow lifted Guiao’s sagging spirits, having lost title playoffs on narrow defeats.
But more than anything, the Painters’ win somehow restored Guiao’s shattered ego on another battlefield: politics. Guiao lost in his congressional bid in Pampanga after having served as the province’s vice governor. The sanity-saving victory must have made Guiao whole again.
Indeed, you win some, you lose some.
(alsol47@yahoo.com)