Rain or Shine showed a lot of character as it pulled off a stunning 109-102 victory over Meralco even in the absence of their import Jaylen Johnson who was serving a one-game suspension.

And head coach Yeng Guiao was  naturally elated to see his charges gut it out and come away with a victory even though they were giving up a few inches in ceiling, especially up against Meralco’s seven-foot import Marvin Jones.

But for the veteran mentor, the win was just a product of effort and the lady luck smiling at them.

“We caught Meralco on a bad day. That's not the real game. They were kind of complacent, maybe a little bit overconfident,” Guiao commented after the game.

“Psychologically, we had the upper hand playing with nothing to lose and expectations going against us winning the game. The guys were just playing as hard as they can,” he added.

But how exactly the game panned out for ROS?

According to Guiao, the game plan for the team was just to keep in step and hang around to give itself a chance of sneaking in the win in the end game. And knowing that the Elasto Painters were depleted at the frontline without Johnson and Keith Datu who is still out with an injury, the rest of the team simply committed at gang rebounding.

And that painted a rosy picture to the Elasto Painters’ third win in as many games.

Rain or Shine ended up outrebounding a Meralco team that had Jones, Cliff Hodge and Brandon Bates playing, 57-46. Six players collared at least five rebounds for the Elasto Painters with Jhonard Clarito, standing at 6-foot-2, hauling down nine.

“We played with a lot of toughness,” said Guiao.

Aside from toughness, ROS also flaunted its maturity.

Meralco made a huge rally in the final frame and cut the lead down to just one, 94-95. But instead of panicking, ROS held its ground and responded with an 11-0 rally that proved to be the turning point of the game.

Luis Villegas nailed a trey, Adrian Nocum scored on a layup and Felix Lemetti was just too fast in transition.

“There were times in the game where parang bibigay na pero nakakabawi pa rin. It's a sign of maturity,” said Guiao.

Calm and collected was ROS even without an import and the charges of Guiao have been doing that for five quarters now. As the fiery mentor jested, they might not even need Johnson if they are playing that well.

“We knew he wanted to play this and help us out. But baka hindi na namin siya kailangan, pauwiin na namin,” Guiao joked.