Rain or Shine wins anew behind team effort; O.G. Lee

Ako? I-shutdown? Nino? Weh.

While all eyes were on the much anticipated and AKTV-hyped match-up of rookies Paul Lee (Rain or Shine) and Marcio Lassiter (Powerade), this afternoon's game was ultimately decided by their teammates in a rather ugly tug-of-war like affair.

Granted, Lee finished as Best Player of the Game (for the 2nd straight time) with 19 points and 5 rebounds, but he spent almost 2/3s of it sitting on the RoS bench. Ditto with Lassiter who was saddled with fouls early in the first half.

Fortunately for both sides, RoS benefited from solid showings by Gabe Norwood, Jireh Ybanez, Beau Belga and JR Quinahan while Powerade features the incomparable Gary David plus a focused and "Ateneo-vintage" like performance by Doug Kramer. The teams competed in a turnover-plagued game where both would enjoy short leads, small deficits and mini-runs.

On to the fun, more interesting part of the game then: Paul Lee and Marcio Lassiter.

Lassiter has made it known that he will "shutdown" Lee in today's game which received mixed reactions from basketball fans. Personally, I like that Lassiter speaks his mind, but for non-SMART Gilas fans, it was received negatively with Lee being the "homegrown hero" and ML coming off as a cocky Fil-Am along the lines of Rob Parker Jr. (Santa Lucia Realtors) and Sam Mitchell (Cebu Gems).

Right off the bat, Lassiter seemed a bit too "excited" to prove a point and that pretty much spelled his doom. He had several flashes of brilliance with timely threes and drives to the hoop (some at Lee's expense), but from a coaching standpoint, he was disrupting the flow of Powerade's offense (not that they had anything to go with really other than isolation plays).

On the other side of the fence, Lee showed just why basketball pundits were raving about him despite posting "just" 20 points, 5 boards and 8 assists versus Ginebra the first time out. While the average fan would say that "it's just one game" or "Lee's over-rated" they're quick to reveal themselves as either non-players or new fans of the basketball game.

Despite battling foul trouble himself, Lee played a more control game. He drives when there's an obvious opening, rotates when the defense is set and creates when his team's offense stalls. Never panics, doesn't really make faces or mind non-calls (the PBA is allowing more contact and even handcheck fouls this conference which I really like). He could've put the nail on the coffin with that missed three pointer, but had he made it we'd end all conversations and just hand him his Rookie of the Year award.

AKTV has dubbed Lassiter as "California Swagger" hey FireQuinito, why not just shorten it to "Cali-Swag" while Lee's stuck with "Lee-thal Weapon/ Angas ng Tondo."

While we're handing out monickers, I will stick to this: Paul "Original Gangsta" Lee. Straight up O.G.