I had initially wanted to write this article a week ago when the PBA Quarterfinals just started. I was watching Game 2 of both series wherein both winning teams rallied from late double-digits deficits to snatch victory and take very big advantages in the respetive best-of-5 series. But a week later, here we are Game 5s that are not just simple Game 5s.
The Quarterfinals have been on a completely different level for me than the eliminations and even the wildcard phase. In the eliminations, we could see people probably going to court at possibly 75% at their hardest. Teams were lax and players were obviously avoiding injury, as it is their livelihood. In the wilcard phase, you could see that people were playing to get to their next paycheck. They were playing harder, but not displaying their complete repertoire. In the quarters though, underdogs are scrapping and favored teams are trying to overpower people with their size, depth and ability.
Even before the walkout last Friday, a lot of drama had already been going down.
1) ComebacksNo lead has been safe in this phase as all teams have threatened (and some, even won) after being down double-digits in the second half. A little too lax, and the other teams have been talented enough to burn and eat into leads.
2) Emerging StarsIntal, Norwood, Mercado, Castro, Artadi - all of them have played beyond expectations as their starters have either been injured or are just in the some slump. All of these have picked up the levels of their games and made the games exciting with new stars being displayed.
3) Veteran StabilityPeople have been telling these guys that they are over-the-hill, but veteran smarts and savvy have not been lost on these games as the vets have more often than not bailed the young bucks with a crucial basket, play, stop or assist. Menk, Telan, Laure, Roger Yap, Alapag and the rest have been the backbones of their teams for years, and now are unmoveable in their being cornerstones of the franchises.
4) Injury MiraclesCaguioa, Helterbrand, Raymundo , Simon, De Guzman have all made comebacks from on-again, off-again injuries to add depth and quality minutes to their teams. Every team seems to be 1-10 strong again, and if one piece doesn't seem to work, then another gets immediately subbed into that slot.
And then there was the walk-out...
Like most people, I really don't like walkouts. My stand is you always try to win it on the court. If you feel like the refs are cheating you, there's always a way to win still. If they don't call fouls for you, you just bull rush people to the hoop until the refs have to give up slanting calls as it will cost them their jobs. If they keep on calling fouls on you, foul hard. Make the opponents pay for those 2 free throw they thought they'd get easily. Now, I'm not encouraging dirty play, but if it's necessary to have to go through that route, then what choice do you have?
It's a given that the commissioner's office will not side with the team. That's just a fact. The PBA will not admit that their referees are slanted if only to protect the name of the league. We all know that corruption exists in the league and the refs are probably the biggest targets of it. If the PBA admits the ref's errors, they might as well throw away their credibility as a league since they cannot control their own employees. Doing so would just be plain suicide.
So, I'm hoping that Talk n Text plays Game 5. I hope they play hard and cram it down other people's throats so as to prove that aren't crybabies. The same way, I hope Ginebra comes out with a chip on their shoulders to prove that they did not need that gimme win. Same thing goes for Purefoods and Rain or Shine, prove that thye deserve to move on to the semis, that they belong in the quarters and that they really should be in the PBA at all.
