In the 2019 Governors’ Cup, we all saw NorthPort become the fourth eighth seeded team in Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) history to pull off an upset and overcome the twice-to-beat advantage of a first seed team by beating NLEX in the quarterfinals.

In that season, the Road Warriors were one of the favorites to win it all with an incredible import in Manny Harris and with the duo of Kiefer Ravena and Poy Erram playing at a high level.

However, newly acquired Christian Standhardinger, import Michael Qualls and team captain Sean Anthony went through so much just to barely reach the playoffs which fueled Batang Pier’s stellar performance in the playoffs.

The 2020 Philippine Cup showed us that this year’s All-Filipino title is up for everybody.

And in the quarterfinals the first seeded Barangay Ginebra will be taking on the eighth seeded Rain or Shine. A match-up that could might just give us the fifth eighth seeded team to pull off an upset.

The last time these two teams faced each other was in October 27, and in that game the Elasto Painters took the win in a tightly contested game.

In that game, Beau Belga had 20 points and 10 rebounds off the bench, and as a team the Elasto Painters scored 34 points in the paint.

Belga overpowered the bigs of Barangay Ginebra as his toughness became too much for them to handle despite winning the rebounding battle, 57-45.

The Kings only scored 82 points in total in a game that went to overtime, as they only scored 76 points in the first four quarters. They fell 10 points short of their usual team total points of 92.9 for the season.

Barangay Ginebra also shot poorly from the field at 38%, far from their usual 45% clip.

This shows that in their last meeting, despite the fact that the game needed an extra quarter to have a winner, it was Rain or Shine who had things going in Their favor thanks to a defense that flummoxed the Kings.

The toughness of Belga in the paint, the collective defense of the team as a whole and the clutch plays of Rey Nambatac gave them a huge win.

Now, in the playoffs, we could also see the Kings bow down to the underdogs that is the Elasto Painters.

Don’t get me wrong, Barangay Ginebra is still the superior team in this series. The twice-to-beat advantage is still a huge one – and the top seeded team are a force to be reckoned with. At the very least, we should expect the Elasto Painters to leave it all on the floor in Game 1.

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Do you think RoS can pull off an upset? Sound off below in the comment section!