Borboran, Bolts win over Boosters

Me dahilan kaya pinag agawan
ng SMC at MVP teams si Borboran

In a game dominated by both teams' imports, Petron's Nick Fazekas (33 points) and Meralco's Jarid Famous (26), the real key was the role played by the Bolts' Mark Borboran who finished with 18 points and 11 rebounds while shutting down Petron star Arwind Santos.

While the first quarter started off in close fashion, the Bolts soon pulled away thanks to its fluid fastbreaking offense generated by forcing turnovers on the listless Boosters. Alex Cabagnot seemed lethargic early in the game, Chris Lutz was having trouble finding his usual scoring seams and Arwind Santos, now back to playing small forward, found himself switching from Borboran to Spider monicker rival Gabby Espinas on several instances (Spiderman vs Gagamboy).



Chris Ross was setting up Famous early, and when he wasn't doing that, Borboran was taking advantage of several mismatches. And while Borboran and Santos are in that athletic, wiry mold, Borboran is a more natural and polished offensive threat (he was the man at University of the East during the Bonbon Custodio-Paul Lee-Kelvin Gregorio-Elmer Espiritu era).

What we love about the game is that it showed all the flaws that the Boosters possess. From its over reliance on Cabagnot and Santos, to its lack of another perimeter defender at the wing position (probably a big reason why the trade for Powerade's Marcio Lassiter was being considered) and finally, Santos' inability to play the small forward position like he used to.

Don't get us wrong, Santos is still the standard bearer when it comes to great, all around Filipino basketball players, but as proven in the last two conferences, Santos plays better closer to the basket than far from it.  Borboran kept forcing Santos to extend all the way outside, where the former is a surprisingly under-rated skilled slasher for his size. Inside, Borboran's added PBA bulk paid dividends in pushing and boxing Santos out of his attack path.

It took a while for Bolts' head coach Ryan Gregorio to form the team that he has always preferred even during his time with Purefoods/ BMeg-- a fastbreaking, attack-from-all-angles squad that is anchored by a great rebounder/ post presence (import Famous whose broad shoulders reminds us of New York's Amare Stoudemire but, as FireQuinito pointed out, whose game is more Tyson Chandler's).

Hopefully, the Bolts can make a deeper push this conference. Only problem we see is when guard Sol Mercado comes back, coach Ryan has the unenviable task of looking for a spot on the floor for him. Does he play PG and bring the ever-improving Ross back to the bench? Start at SG in place of Macmac Cardona? Play "super sub?" Or maybe, slide Cardona to SF and leave Borboran and Espinas to figure things out at PF?