Manila Clasico Running Diary

6:20 PM - First thing in the running diary and I'm putting Renaldo Balkman's tattoo in the eyelids in it. What the hell is wrong with me???? Also, we are witnessing Petronovela Season 2 Episode 2 in the midst of this San Mig Coffee and Barangay Ginebra rivalry match. What the hell is wrong with everyone????

6:28 - This one is awfully taking too long... makes me think who else put tattoos in their eyelids. WHO ELSE PUT TATTOOS IN THEIR EYELIDS.

6:31 - Funny tweet: wushuuu... kung talagang bati na nga kayo..... KISS NGA!!! #balkman #santos

6:33 - Finally! We're getting started. Makes me remember my former birthday wish of having this match with both teams winless. Darn!

6:36 - First basket belongs to Ginebra with an LA-Ellis alley-oop. Lob city Philippines?

6:38 - Back to back baskets from James Yap. Meanwhile...

6:39 - Mark Caguioa being BOOED??? Wow. That's a first. Another first is Billy Mamaril going 3/3 in the field to start his game. Streak shooting.

6:42 - First timeout called and finally the crowd stopped screaming. Are we watching an Ateneo-La Salle game?

6:48 - Kerby Raymundo is now in the game. GOOD GOD KERBY RAYMUNDO IS IN THE GAME! Did I mention that Kerby Raymundo is now in the game?

6:51 - After starting 2/2, James missed his next four in the field. So much for a good start.

6:55 - 24-17 after one in favor of Ginebra. 84% of Ginebra fans are wishing upon a star that some volcano rise up the floor of Araneta Coliseum so that the game would stop and give Ginebra their second win.

7:00 - It's time to play a game called "What is Alfrancis Chua Thinking?" This one, guess what coach Alfrancis Chua is thinking in matching up 5'5" Rob Labagala to 6'3" Alex Mallari. Winners will get a free 8 hours of sleep due to confusion.

7:06 - Coach Tim Cone was pretty generous enough to send in Mark Barroca to match up with Rob Labagala. Yes... that's what I think.

7:10 - Billy Mamaril is making a living out of that mid-range shot. He's now 5/5 and get this lead up to 10. GINEBRA UP BY 10... MY GOD!!! Please spare us global warming.

7:13 - Ellis completing a chase down block and Bowles blowing a point blank shot and Ginebra running like hopeless thieves. Looks like a switch of brand drinks happened during pre-game.

7:18 - End of second quarter. This is the score. Hold on folks. 48-35 in favor of Ginebra. 48-35 IN FAVOR OF GINEBRA. MY GOODNESS!!!

7:26 - It's time to open that bag of chicharon!!!! CRRRRUUUUNNNCCCCHHHH!

7:36 - Second half time with Ginebra executing a pick and roll. Fact: no matter who the coach is, Ginebra executes the most lethal pick and roll play.

7:39 - Jolas after a Tenorio miss: minsan kinakalawang talaga kamay mo pag matagal kang hindi tumitira. THANK YOU!

7:39 - James with a three from Farmer's Plaza. Maybe SMC needs broken half court plays in order to score instead of executing. Now they're down by 10...

7:41 - ...and now down by 8. If this goes down to 6, uh oh...

7:44 - SMC down by 12 after a Mamaril midrange, which makes him 6/6. Imagine if Billy didn't make five of those, then we have a ballgame. So if Ginebra wins... MY GOODNESS BILLY MAMARIL WAS THE DIFFERENCE!!!

7:50 - An evidence the basketball gods are favoring Ginebra: four SMC and Macklin in the paint. Everyone goes up after the missed shot. Guess who got the basketball.

7:54 - 67-58 for Ginebra after the third. Every Ginebra fan is wishing that the game stops now!

7:57 - 67-60 with 11:12 remaining. Again, EVERY Ginebra fan is wishing the game stops now.

7:59 - Usual Alfrancis Chua Ginebra problem: LA started a fastbreak but no one ran with him.  I thought they were run and gun?

8:02 - BREAKING NEWS: There was no GSM Blue found inside the cooler of Ginebra, thus that electrifying fastbreak by the kings.

8:05 - 75-62 for Ginebra with 6:35 left in the game. Tim Cone was giving Barroca a mouthful as it fades to commercial. He should've screamed at their goal instead for rolling their shots out.

8:12 - SMC managed a 10-5 run with under four minutes in the game. One last push for SMC and one more plead to their ring to stop puking the ball out of their goal.

8:14 - By the way, where is James Yap????

8:17 - LAST TWOOOOOOO MINUTES!!!! 82-72 Ginebra. Ginebra fans are really praying hard right now.

8:18 - Oh, there was James Yap. And-one! Five point ball game... uh oh...

8:20 - Mark Caguioa with a three! I am loving his consistency in scoring after winning that MVP. While we're at it, special mention to Gary David.

8:22 - A trio of events... Mark Caguioa's happened to be the biggest. He has now 25. He and Gary David averages more points than Justin Williams.

8:26 - SMC still fighting for dear life. If only those threes were getting in instead of getting out, then it won't lead to Ginebra fans still feeling tense as of this moment (cut to Ginebra fans sweating in prayers).

8:29 - Buzzer sounds. Ginebra wins. Fans can now breathe.

8:30 - LA posting assists numbers like he is Rajon Rondo. But he is gunshy as... as... as... LA Tenorio?

This Week in Philippine Sports: Belga Knows Fakes.

I know I'm quite a loser of a sports fan because I missed a "thriller" of a volleyball game between DLSU (Wensh Dear!) and Ateneo (Greta Beybe!). But with a personal purpose in life that happened to coincide with that day would make one feel just okay (Translation: I just got my long awaited phone bitches!). So forgive me if I concentrate on just one game. But this one game deserves a lot of things to talk about. Let's get it on!

- The science behind Beau Belga's shot fake is close to inexistence. This is one of the moments where you're watching ROS on TV with your friends, see them run their high-low play, see Belga receive the ball at the top of the key, and then suddenly execute a betting game with your friends in a split second and see if Beau will shoot or fake and drive. That bears an almost equal probability as a toss coin. His starting form for a jump shot and a shot fake is really the same; heck it's even hard to identify it when you play and replay AND replay the game tapes! The bad news is, when you don't go for the shot fake and just let him shoot, he's as dead eye as his teammate Jeff Chan. So I pretty much understand where Vernon Macklin was going through when he kept biting those shot fakes over and over again.

- The next painful thing after that bait, he'll do Jason Castro moves... ALL THE TIME! Last night? He kicked out that ball to an open teammate for a three. He drove hard to the basket getting lay-ups, fouls, and and-ones. He drops it to another teammate inside after making help defenders commit. HE'S MAKING HELP DEFENDERS COMMIT TO HIM! And he's not even a third-option-on-offense type of guy. Where is this world going?

- This makes me think that the line "What a Jason Castro move by Beau Belga!!" will evolve from being witty to "Holy kamote! The opposing team is in serious trouble."

- When Ginebra was stacking losses like small empty balikbayan boxes, I always thought that one part of the problem was LA Tenorio passing too much. He passes up open makeable three pointers for drives headed to nothingtown, and kick it out again, leaving his teammates clueless on what to do with the ball. The worst part is he'll pass up those threes with defenders still four or five feet away, giving defenders a better chance to stop his dribble penetration. Even though he was going like 3-8s or 2-9s from the field I still believed he shot less. Last night's game proved me right. He didn't pass those open threes and made them. I believe he made double digit points and shot well last night... and almost won!

- Now why did they lose? Free throws. It will not lead to those tense moments down the stretch had they made those free throws. If only Macklin had made a couple more and Mark Caguioa nailing those three straight free throws instead of missing then, then we might have ourselves a tied 2-4 Manila Clasico.

- Speaking of those tense moments down the stretch, this is where chemistry kicks in. That play where Kerby Raymundo tossed the ball over to the table officials, it was easy to decipher... Kerby thought LA was already running ahead when he passed that ball. Apparently LA was just standing there waiting for him. Kerby let his instinct rule over his senses, thinking he was passing the ball to Roger Yap. It resulted to turnover. Kerby then got a lot of unnecessary heat for that one, throwing his relatively great game out of the door.

- While we're at it, how LA and Macklin playing good music together is such a pleasure to watch. Like how many alley-oops did they made? 41?

- And how many fouls was called out of those 41 alley-oops? 138! Goodness! Those phantom fouls was close to unbearable. It made me wanna pluck those whistles down to the referees' throats. If the commissioner's office decides to review the calls of the entire game, those three refs will be suspended by next game day.

- Last thing... ROS is doing this winning thing minus Jeff Chan. Once Jeff returns, this would be interesting.

See you next week!


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This Week in Philippine Sports: PBA Referees, Close Games, and You

Wild week in the PBA, and I missed the most of it due to a shitload of day work. But that's okay... I've got it all covered... well, almost.

- Here's how I think the coaches can save themselves from what they see as "The Wrath of the Referees During Close Games at the End.": play a great basketball game the entire 48 minutes; keep them at bay, if possible get a 20 plus point lead... because above all the purpose of it is to win (which will eventually make the fans happy with the win), and to avoid the sometimes inevitable "cardiac" games (translation: DON'T blow huge leads!). Again, AVOID! Let's not say that PBA referees are downright incompetent, but their level of competency is inconsistent. When games are loose, they perform well. When games are close, everyone's nerves are starting to shake... even the referees. The difference is, the teams got clutch players; referees, I'm not sure. Maybe the proposal of training PBA referees abroad is a way you can instill them how to be clutch as well.

- Here's one reason why you don't blame referees during a loss on a close game because it's the team's fault all along: the Meralco-GlobalPort game last night. Proper execution of their offense lead to that last play. Sure their defense was great for a good eight seconds, but the thing is there was 9.5 seconds remaining on the game. What happened on the remaining 1.5? This!

- Speaking of GlobalPort, they do realize that they should be 4 and 1 right now had they not blow up everything they have made in the first three quarters of their Barako Bull and Meralco game.

- San Mig Coffee had a quick transformation this past weekend. From a low-card jobber to Rain or Shine last Friday to going John Cena mode on Talk n Text last night. Mark Barroca starting to be the point guard Tim Cone wanted him to be. Tell me what's next for the mixers? The WWE Champion?

- And damn those Texters! They ruined my dream of a Manila Clasico with the first win on the line. Both of them at 0 and 6 when they face-off on March 10. That would be fantastic!

- Quick UFC thoughts before wrapping it up; UFC should impose a smaller cage whenever Lyoto Machida will fight, Ronda Rousey executes an armbar better than half of the UFC roster (All of them men. Rousey and Liz Caramouche are by far the only women mixed martial artists in the UFC.), and Josh Koscheck getting beat down is something you don't see in a lifetime.

 
That's all this week! Enjoy!

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This Week in Philippine Sports (Feb 4-10): The Opening Weekend

- The perfect amount of hype to the imports and the added great news of the FIBA-Asia hosting, this PBA Commissioner's cup gained so much anticipation and excitement; so much, that I decided to reopen this site for the fun of it. It will surely be a fun 2013 on the world of sports. Let's get it started!

- Three imports already went down just 96 minutes in the conference; SMC's import via food poisoning, GlobalPort's import via Flagrant Foul 2, and Petron's import via "This MMDA-centered team is so awesome! Thank god that dude hit me in the face so I can watch them more!" (Of course Renaldo Balkman got back in the game. Someone knocked him back to his senses when he said he'd provide 48 minutes of energy.)

- All those imports were impressive, so it's hard to single out an individual who stood out. Perhaps the one who stood out in their respective debuts... Herbert Hill. Ginebra's import. Yep! He stood out that I remembered his name. It took him a half to realize "I'm a freakin' import in this team! I need to make a field goal!" If that travesty lasted the entire game, those Nothing Hill jokes would've lasted until their next game.

- Winless teams after the opening weekend: Petron, San Mig Coffee, Talk 'n Text, Rain or Shine, Ginebra. Nice party!

- Speaking of Talk 'n Text, there is a certain universal law that says "The Tropang Texters should have at least one player in it's team who is currently losing it's way and the team will try to get that player back in the right direction but will fail in it miserably." Japeth Aguilar was there. Rabeh Al-Hussaini is there now.

- Speaking of San Miguel Corporation teams, you better not test Noli Eala's patience today, for you know how great his weekend was.

- Can anyone remember the day Danny Seigle went down during that Qatar National Team exhibition game? It scares the shit out of me everytime he'll do things like trying to posterize Japeth Aguilar and Justin Williams and get blocked in the end. Either way, it's a good thing to see Danny still defying the odds, defying his age, and defying gravity.

- De La Salle laying another smack down on Ateneo this past Saturday. They'd rather solve differential equations than figuring out how in the blue hell they can beat La Salle in the final four. Wait... will they make it in the final four???

- If you were able to watch the Super Bowl, now is the time to think that this country is not far behind from our American counterparts when it comes to sports. Look, nangyayari din ang brownout sa kanila sa gitna ng game. We're almost there!

- So... Valentine's! Be sure to make your significant other happy, okay?

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