Tabla! Texters fight back

Catch him if you can!

Talk about having the heart of champions-- the Talk 'n' Text Tropang Texters survived a scintillating, throwback James Yap performance behind the exploits of their own MVP-caliber player Jayson "The Blur" Castro.

Of course, there's also the dominant performance by blue collar Texters import Donnel Harvey who more than held his own against the Llamados' young giant Denzel Bowles who made a couple of crucial errors in the closing seconds-- passing the ball to the wrong guy, missing a free throw and deciding to make the 2nd one when they were down 3 and so on. Just the kind of mistakes you'd expect a 22-year-old to make on the biggest stage of them all.

Back to Castro, and how the "Man with a Million Injuries" kept the Texters in the fight in the 4th quarter when the Llamados were up by four-five points. Man-for-man, the Llamados have a good 6-7 man rotation with two legit scorers in Yap and buddy PJ Simon while the Texters have Castro, Ranidel de Ocampo and at times, Jimmy Alapag within a solid 10 man rotation.

The moment the Llamados entered the penalty situation despite being up 5 in the 4th with still 6 minutes to play, it was only a matter of time before the Texters went fishing for fouls.

Surprisingly, the Texters were settling for perimeter shots despite the Llamados' foul troubles-- until Coach Chot Reyes sent Castro back in to bring the fight to the Llamados. Castro with some fearless dribble drives to get them back into it, before drilling in a big time, ballsy three that put them up by one. A couple of loose ball sequences and trips to the foul line later, the Texters find themselves leveling the series at one game a piece.

Some game notes:

Josh Urbiztondo is outplaying Jimmy Alapag
Hate to say it, but in a game of marksmanship, Urbiztondo has beaten Alapag in both games. Alapag has been a non-factor in this series so far. On defense, you'd expect Alapag to at least have the veteran savvy to make things tough for Urbiztondo but he's being left in the dust by the Llamados' streaky shooter. The least the reigning MVP could do on the floor is to drop his patented long range threes, but even that's not going in for him. Then there's PJ Simon, Coach Tim Cone's new favorite, masquerading as a PG and just owning Alapag all over the floor.

Texters need to go big to negate Llamados' size
Castro at PG, Dillinger, Williams, Peek and Carey. If he's on, throw in a Ranidel de Ocampo. This is arguably the Texters' best five in matching up with the Llamados who are going with a non-traditional line-up with shooting guard Simon handling PG chores.

Ali Peek! Ali Peek! Ali Peek!
Ali Peek is too much in the paint for Marc Pingris and even Denzel Bowles. He's stronger, smarter and has ice running in his veins. If Peek continues to play in this series and is back in shape, the Llamados' frontline is in for a world of hurt. Pingris is a great, speedy, athletic and tenacious, but Peek is just Incredible Hulk strong in the post and can get his hook shots to go in over any defender.

More screens for Castro
When healthy (okay, even when he's not), Castro is just plain unguardable. Urbiztondo can't handle him. Mark Barroca is raw. Jonas Villanueva is rusty. PJ Simon is and has always been a joke on D. In two games, the Texters have forced the Llamados to bite on every play by being the aggressors. This series could've easily been 2-0 had the Texters made their fair share of free throws, the more they drive, the more the Llamados are forced to give up fouls which will hurt them in the long run specially because Coach Tim loves to play his starters for long stretches. Take Simon or Yap out, and they're stuck going to Bowles or Joe DeVance.

Texters attack the rim, Llamados settle for Js
Again, Texters run right to the rim and get fouls for a reason while the Llamados have been settling for threes outside of Bowles. If the Llamados want to win this series, they need to return the favor and attack the inside-- which sadly isn't their strong suit.

Joe DeVance is the new Jon Ordonio
He looks like a basketball player. He has the college credentials. He's athletic. He shows flashes of superstar-like basketball. BUT, he's soft and cannot be relied upon to carry any team even for a quarter. You have to love the faith that Coach Tim has on JDV, but in this series, he proved to be quite useless once Ali Peek was brought in and started throwing his weight around in the paint. Peek mind you, is a couple of inches shorter than JDV but was dropping hookshots over the Llamados' forward's noggin'.

Marc Pingris has Ranidel de Ocampo on lock
The KKS Doctor is OUT. Not by his choosing, but because he was kicked out of the Finals by Pinoy Sakuragi Pingris. Always the slow-to-set-up player, De Ocampo is having a hard time getting to his spots inside the three point lane because Pingris has pretty much tied himself to RDO's hip. Fortunately for the Texters, Peek is back and can put pressure on the Llamados' frontline while RDO slides to SF or even sits down in favor of Kelly Williams.

Overall, it was a close game at first glance but was the Texters to lose rather than the Llamados' to win. Just like Game 1, they were getting the looks from all over and were making repeated trips to the paint via dribble drives. Big difference was they were making their free throws this time around which ultimately led to their win. The game was only close because Donnel Harvey and Kelly Williams missed a bunch of free throws in succession in the end game but it could have easily been a 10 point win.