Thoughts on today's Game Twos

Air21 defeats Alaska (series tied 1-1)

With their backs on the wall and facing elimination, Air21 turned to their Lebanese import Alpha Bangura-- an old school, high scoring, take no prisoners reinforcement that is arguably the best of the remaining lot, to lead them to victory. And boy, did he ever deliver in the Express' 94-84 victory this afternoon.

Scoring 40 points on an array of long jumpers and halftime highlight-worthy dunks, all his teammates had to do the entire game were to set screens and grab rebounds (which they did quite well). Quite surprising was how little Dondon Hontiveros and Danny Seigle contributed in their win, but you could credit that to Alaska's younger defenders who were on the ex-Beermen like pitbulls would on a slab of meat.

Silver lining for Alaska would be Joe de Vance's continued improved play and L.A. Tenorio's steady rise. LD Williams is due for a breakout game despite dishing out 17 points and 11 rebounds. If he can't stay in front of Bangura, then that's it for the Aces. That, or they better hope that Tony de la Cruz turns back the hands of time and work like hell.

Rain or Shine defeats Ginebra (series tied 1-1)

Hassan Adams is not Alpha Bangura. Or Anthony Johnson. Or Tony Harris. Or any other high scoring import. What he can or has done in the early going of the Commisioner's Cup is barrel into the lane and either score or find open teammates for jumpers. So in Game 1 when he scored 12 points and Yeng Guiao said he's okay with it despite them losing-- that's fine with me.

Guiao afterall, has never been a fan of one-on-one scorers and prefers a team-oriented type of basketball wherein he can depend on ALL of his players to put up points and not just draw plays on one brahma bull.

In today's game everything went RoS' way. Adams did his usual drive and dish game, Gabe Norwood (who now knows where he's supposed to be in Guiao's organized-chaos style of coaching as the lead point guard) set up his teammates and well, everyone was making shots much to the Gin Kings' dismay.

Call me a conspiracy theorist here, but I found it odd that Jimbo Aquino started instead of Miller or Caguiao. I hate it when teams don't play their best guys right away (or at least use them off the bench before the role players unless its a Guiao team where there's no such thing as "fixed rotations") so come Game 3, I expect one of the two heavyweight scorers to start and come out swinging. That, or we're in for Guiao VS Rajko Toroman in the next round (which I wouldn't mind seeing, but box office wise, would pale in comparison to Ginebra-Gilas).

Atat na atat kasi ako makitang gaguhin ni Ronald Tubid si Chris Tiu e.