PBA: Tiu gives Rain or Shine a lift, but team still falls short

Chris Tiu played the best game of his young PBA career by leading the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters in scoring, with 14 points in only 22 minutes of play. However, the effort of the former Ateneo Blue Eagle and national team player went for naught as his team lost to the Talk 'N Text Tropang Texters 89-80 Sunday, to fall into a 0-3 hole in the best-of-seven Philippine Cup Finals series.

The seventh overall pick in the 2012 PBA Draft said that he would gladly trade away his career game for a victory. "Nothing is more important than a win, Tiu said. "If I have to score zero points in a game and just keep giving assists to my teammates, that's enough for me as long as we win."

[Related: Talk 'N Text rain triples, go up 3-0 over Rain or Shine in Finals]

Tiu was a force inside the paint as Rain or Shine head coach Yeng Guiao made a concentrated effort of posting up their guards against Jayson Castro and Jimmy Alapag. Tiu scored eight of his 14 points in the two-point area coming from an array of moves that left Talk 'N Text head coach Norman Black impressed.

"Chris has always been a good post-up player," said Black, who coached Tiu in Ateneo. "I'm actually surprised that they only started posting up Chris now."

The ROS rookie brushed aside the compliments and simply said that he did what he could do to help the team. "Depende naman kasi sa match-up," he pointed out. " Hindi makakonekta sila Jeff [Chan] at Paul [Lee] so I needed to step up offensively."

Chan and Lee struggled in this game again, combining for only 10 points.

"Napagod ako down the stretch kasi di ako sanay sa mahabang minuto," admitted Tiu. "But it was nice to be in the game for a long time again. I'll learn from this game and keep trying to get better. I'm still trying to earn the trust of coach Yeng."

At the tailend of the game, Tiu dribbled upcourt in an effort to cut the Talk 'N Text lead but the ball was stripped from him by Castro. The Rain or Shine bench howled as they though there was a foul.

Tiu got these scratches after the Castro steal. "Should have been a foul pero decision ng referees yun e" he said. twitter.com/carlo_pamintua…

— Carlo Pamintuan (@carlo_pamintuan) January 13, 2013

"I think that should have been a foul," said Tiu who showed scratches on his left arm which he said came from that play. "I saw an opening kaya dederecho ko na sana but decision ng referees iyun so we have to respect it."

"We're not even thinking of the championship right now," he also confessed. "We'll have to come back on Wednesday focused on getting a win."

"We just have to take it one game, or even one possession at a time." - AMD, GMA News