Unimaginative offense dooms GlobalPort in debut

Kamay ko inalat!

Jason Webb touched on it during the half time break by saying that the GlobalPort Batang Pier, who were in the middle of an ass-whooping from the hands of the souped-up Barangay Ginebra San Miguel squad, have yet to find their identity on the basketball court.

Are they a run-and-gun, fastbreaking, uptempo scoring team or a grind-it-out defensive team?

Well he got 50% of it right. With guys like Gary David, Rabeh Al Hussaini and new recruit Willie Miller, the Batang Pier squad SHOULD be a high-octane team that can hold their own against a team like Ginebra. David's coming off a stellar,nay, supernova-like season. Al Hussaini's finally gotten his chance to shine as the lead power forward, and Miller looks to be in the best shape he's ever been in the last three years.

The problem was, Head Coach Glen Capacio's probably stuck in ABL-mode believing that one-on-one offense still works in the PBA. Just give it to your top gun (David/ Miller) and clear out. Simple, basic, unimaginative plays best left for the amateurs.

Of course, this is only the first real game for the Batang Pier squad and that rookies like Vic Manuel and Angelo Raymundo were suffering from a bad case of opening game jitters. It's tough to hold your own against a team that has roughly 90% of the SMART Araneta Coliseum cheering for just about anything (and with good reason, Ginebra looks as though any or all combinations sent in by Coach Siot Tangquincen can run the competition to the ground).

We'd like to see more of David moving without the ball. He's stuck waiting for it by the wings and has been struggling so much because of Ginebra's young, long, athletic wings who are able to rotate just as quickly as the snap pass David receives. They made some adjustments with him going baseline, but someone forgot to send the memo to the Batang Pier bigs to set sturdy screens (give guys like Manuel and Raymundo time, don't expect any from Al Hussaini-- he's allergic to contact).

Rudy Lingganay is as ballsy and capable a point guard as they come, but he's pretty much what we've said all along-- Celino Cruz 2.0. Clutch as hell, can knock down big shots, but is just not a great floor general who can command a team and make plays on the fly. He opened the game firing and was the only driving force for the Batang Pier squad in the 1st quarter-- but the only real solution he really had for Ginebra's defense was for himself to take (and make) shots.

Coach Capacio needs to make Lingganay a true PG and set up plays. Have David play the pick-and-pop with Al Hussaini (which is something the bratty big man is quite good at) and keep his bigs playing high-low. Tonight, Hussaini and Raymundo were just playing the perimeter on both O and D, ditto with Manuel. Only bright side was Jondan Salvador-- the undersized power forward has always known where he's most effective. Just too slow and flat-footed to get any minutes versus Ginebra's avalanche of athletic forwards.

The "Willie Miller as the 6th man" ploy works just fine with us, since it allows for continuity from David to Miller in terms of being an offensive threat on the floor for Batang Pier.

We know Coach Capacio is smarter than today's game and was probably checking where his team stood in terms of going up against elite PBA competition. For Batang Pier to really make a statement and live up to their predecessor Powerade's "underdog" tag, they need to be more creative and flexible on offense while working together on defense.

That, or it's going to be a long, painful debut season for Batang Pier.