Petron, Talk 'n' Text continue PBA dominance early

The two deepest teams in the PBA continued their winning ways with blow-out victories in tonight's double header at the Ynares Center in Antipolo. Petron man-handled Barako Bull 95-83 in a game that was out of reach early while Talk 'n' Text delivered a big brother-sized spanking on sibling Meralco 98-80.

Petron continues to ride the Arwind Santos Monster Tour while getting great contributions from Alex Cabagnot (who now plays more like a 2 than a 1) and "too cool for school" rookie Chris Lutz. Now on top of the standings with a 2-0 card, every single player that head coach Ato Agustin calls on delivers big numbers and it seems that they have finally found specific roles to play.

Danny Ildefonso and new acquisition Carlo Sharma took care of the paint, Denok Miranda locked down anyone who tried to be fancy with the ball while the rest concentrated on the defensive end. It should also be noted that everything started falling into place for Petron as early as last Governor's Cup wherein Santos gave up calling his own number in favor of concentrating on rebounding first, defense second and points third.

If anything, their two wins were an obvious product of a more aggressive approach on the defensive end and Rodman-like dedication to crash the boards.

On the other hand, Talk 'n' Text waylaid Meralco by simply having more firepower than any other team in the league. TNT coach Chot Reyes decided to "release the Kraken" with SMART Gilas standout Japeth Aguilar who delivered big and played like a 6"9 guard/ small forward-- driving, dribbling, dunking on guys who are nowhere near his athletic ability.

To make matters worse for the already out-matched Meralco Bolts, they lost returning star Mark Cardona in the first quarter on a bad-looking ankle injury (they were already without Sol Mercado and Chris Ross).

Oh, and TNT was playing WITHOUT stars PBA 2010 MVP Jimmy Alapag, Ranidel de Ocampo and Kelly Williams!

Question now is, are we looking at a rematch?

It's still too early to tell but barring any injuries perhaps we are looking at a blossoming rivalry much like Crispa-Toyota in the PBA's early years.

I still believe though, that defense wins championships-- and right now, Petron's playing the best brand of defense I've seen in the 3 PBA game days so far.