Ball Points (10-30-2009)

• It was Freaky Friday for the PBA last night and the broadcasters were asked to wear costumes. Ateanan Mico Halili wore a DLSU jacket but could not take the color of green for a whole game as choose to take it off by halftime. Chiqui Reyes wore some sort of wizard outfit. Of course, I will not forget to mention the beautiful Lia Cruz. (Click on her name to see her in costume.) She was having difficulty picking out a costume before settling on dressing up as Mico Halili. Hey, this girl would look great in ANY type of costume. Onto some real basketball talk now. Anybody who said they believe that Josh Urbiztondo and Dennis Daa can lead the SLR Realtors in scoring in a official PBA game is lying. Josh led the team a team-high and career-high 24 points and 4 assists while Dennis Daa finished with 15 points and 4 rebounds. My biggest concern for the Realtors is their depth. Their best 5 of Gabby Espinas, Kelly Williams, Bitoy Omolon, Ryan Reyes and Joseph Yeo can compete with any team in the league but the same can't be said for their bench. Guys like Urbiztondo, Daa, Ardy Larong and Chris Pacana have to contribute on a consistent basis if the Realtors expect to contend for the All-Filipino Cup title. In the 1st game of the double-header in the PBA, the Coca-Cola Tigers were able to earn their 1st win despite trailing by double-digit in the 3rd.
• It looks like the games against Smart-Gilas will not count in the standings after all. The PBA commissioner has already sent a letter to SBP director Noli Eala notifying him of the decision of the PBA officials. Of course, the PBA ordered the change due to the lack of playing time of Gilas import CJ Giles when they played against TNT (Smart-Gilas' sister team). Their theory is that Rajko benched Giles to help boost their sister team's standing which I don't get at all. Can you blame Toroman for benching his import because his best player's head wasn't in the game? He didn't even play a single second against BGK. As far as I can remember, BGK is not a sister team of Smart-Gilas. Hey, Toroman fielded Giles as much as possible in their against BK and his boss Manny V. Pangilinan is actually a part owner of BK. If Toroman did try to help improve TNT's record by benching Giles, why didn't he do it for MVP's other team? Noli's not happy at all as well. He's saying that this latest development is a message from the PBA that they do not want the Smart-Gilas team playing in the commercial league. I'm pretty sure that this is not a objective comment at all from Eala. He has taken every opportunity to bash the PBA in the past because of what happened in 2007. What's done is done. Eala has to move on. At least the PBA is still willing to let them play with the PBA teams. Besides, the Gilas team needs international competition and not local competition. I fear that they might get sucked in the brand of play of the PBA if they play with them extensively. PBA teams employ so much isolation plays and let their star players "gumawa ng diskarte." I'm not saying the style of play of PBA players is ugly. In fact, it's a nice treat to watch. It's just that the 2 previous RP teams have not reached a respectable finish in FIBA-Asia with this style.
• I got treated to a very lengthy game when I watched the battle between the 2 best teams of the Northwest Divison of the NBA last year, the Denver Nuggets and the Portland Trailblazers. The game took so long because of the 90 combined free throws attempts by both teams. I don't think you can blame the refs for calling so much fouls. The stars of both teams, Carmelo Anthony and Brandon Roy, were just both very aggressive driving down the lane. They actually combined for 37 FT attempts in the game. I guess the refs thought that it was also fitting to just let FTs decide the game. With 4.6 seconds remaining and Denver holding a 1 point lead, Kenyon Martin was called for a very soft foul for holding on Greg Oden. It looked like Portland got lucky as they were rewarded a golden opportunity to take the lead. Unfortunately for them, FTs ultimately gave the Nuggets the win as Greg Oden missed his two FTs. On the other end, Melo knocked down his pair of charity shots after he was fouled as he got the rebound off Oden's miss. I never liked seeing a ball game be decided on FTs. Let the players play. Melo was very aggressive in the game and the commentators said that the Melo of this year is different from the Melo of past years. I'll have to agree to that after seeing him in action. Now, if he can only turn himself into an all-around performer. That means he needs to get better at the defensive end and he needs to be a better passer. He showed some signs of that last year but he has to do it consistently if he wants to win a ring for himself. Does his team have enough to get past the Lakers and the Spurs? I don't think so but nobody expected them to be in the Western Conference Finals last year.
• How about the blowout win of the Mavs over the defending champions, the LA Lakers? And they did it in Kobe's house, the Staples Center. The Lakers just could not buy a basket in the 2nd half. The Mavs really looked good on both ends of the floor as they were getting open shots while they forced the Lakers into difficult, contested shots. Ron Artest looked lost in his 1st 2 games as a Laker. He's shooting 4-16 from the field so far. Not a very encouraging sign if you're a Laker fan. If these Lakers come up with anything less than a championship at the end of the year, Ron-Ron is going to be unfairly blamed for it. It's not his fault the Celtics have a healthy KG this year and some new quality recruits in Rasheed Wallace and Marquis Daniels. He also shouldn't be blamed for making other contenders like the Orlando Magic, Cleveland Cavaliers and Dallas Mavericks a lot deeper this year. I just hope that Ron Artest will find a way to incorporate himself into the Lakers' system without causing so much headache. Jeff Van Gundy also remarked (repeatedly, maybe 10 times?) how having Dirk Nowitzki play as the center while putting Marion at the power forward position will create so much headache for the opposing teams' defense. I agree with him on that but if Dirk does play the 5, that would mean the either Dirk or Shawn Marion will have to defend the likes of Tim Duncan, David West, Pau Gasol, Dwight Howard, Kevin Garnett, etc. That doesn't really quite equate to a successful playoff run in my book.
  

Ball Points (10-5-09)

• A lot of basketball today and it started with a battle between the two best guest teams this year in the NCAA, EAC and AU. I'm really wondering why they didn't make this game as the main event for today. The other game for today was UPHSD against the AUF. Who's going to watch that game? I know those 2 teams have pretty courtside reporters but it's a meaningless game between two cellar dweller teams. Anyway, back to AU VS EAC. It was great game as expected with both teams trading punches courtesy of their star players, Gio Ciriacruz(28 points) and Argel Mendoza(29 points). I know it's not an ADMU-DLSU game but a diehard basketball fan would surely enjoy this one. EAC eventually won the game 86-81 with Argel coming up big in the clutch. Guys like Argel and Gio will definitely benefit from their squad's guest appearance in the NCAA. Aside from getting more attention from scouts, they also got a chance to test their skills with some of the best players in the collegiate ranks like RJ Jazul and John Wilson. It's too bad Gio has played his last game in the NCAA as his team will not take part in the F4 but I hope we'll see more of his spunk in the coming PCCL. I'm not sure if he can make it the pros as he reminds me of a Yousif Aljamal. An undersized big man who works hard, plays smart, can drive and can shoot the ball from the outside. He's not the biggest guy. He's not the fastest guy. He's not highest leaper. He still produces for his team despite those physical limitations but those limitations might hinder him from going to the PBA but who knows. Maybe he can work harder on his game and can show the scouts that he has what it takes to play with the big boys. Right now, I can see him succeed in the PBL with his abilities. Building his name in the PBL will surely help him reach the PBA. For Argel, his ability to score even against contact might be enough to get him in the PBA. I'm not sure if he is graduating this year. I'd like to see him in a better team either in the NCAA or the PBL. I want to see if his success is solely because on the fact that he's on a bad team. (By the way, AUF won a meaningless game 73-66. )
• In the first game of "Pinoy Basketbol Kakampi nyo", PBL-LP was too much for the pretty boys from NCAA and UAAP. The first half saw the UAAP-NCAA volunteers (Yes they are not stars.) dominate the game with fluidity and shooting. The second half was a different story as the men from LP-PBL took the game to the boys. They just played with much more aggressiveness and hunger. Guys like Melegrito and Leynes were playing hard-nose defense on the UAAP-NCAA guards which disrupted the offense of the collegiate players. Revenge for Gerilla? This guy dominated the guy inside and out. Maybe he wanted this game to make a statement against the school that threw him out of their basketball team. How about Joshua David Spider Webb? This kid took the game seriously and was finding loopholes to get to the rim. His ability to get to the paint is phenomenal. How about Gerwin Gaco wearing a vintage Harbour Centre jersey? It certainly brought a lot of good memories back. Go Oracle! Go for no. 8! Well, they just answered our question, j_myxx. Mangahas and Mirza were on the other team which I don't get. Those 2 guys did nothing for LP-PBL. They should've been on the UAAP-NCAA team. Gelo Montecastro made me eat my words. He was fantastic in the 1st half but Jan Tan? WTH is Tanuan doing in the LP-PBL team? Still it is a game for a good cause so we can't thank these players enough.
• Smart -Gilas destroys Powerade 98-69. Excellent display of teamwork by the Gilas boys. More on game tomorrow. Can someone tell me how I can get those T-Shirts Gilas wore in their warm-ups. How about Lia Cruz? It's been a while since we last saw her. She was hot. Damn.
  
• More on UE-ADMU finals. I'm sorry. I know I said we won't see any double digit lead wins in this series but we did. I think it was just human tendecy to relax knowing your up one game. I just did not think this ADMU team was capable of getting into a mental lapse as they did in game 2. This team was so flawless going into the finals that I believed that this team would always give themselves a chance to win with their fantastic system. Boom has been mentioning how James Martinez really feels bad about not being part of this UE team. So I was wondering how this guy could have changed this UE team if he was healthy. He would surely give UE a lot more depth which was big concern after Game 1 but his absence has led to emergence of guys like Reyes and Lingganay. Only God knows what would've happened if James played this year.