Let it go

Photo courtesy of Sports5

No one saw this happening.

Air21 Express, the lowly PBA Commissioner's Cup 7th seed (and unheralded, unpublicised "sister" team), beat the San Miguel Beermen not once, but twice. For two straight games, a team of PBA discards and some collegiate fraternity boys looking to relive the good old days beat one of the recognised powerhouses of the PBA.

Ouch.

On the bright side, the Beermen made it to the Playoffs as the 2nd seed while going through a MAJOR off-season retooling by way of acquiring Sol Mercado and making Chris Ross (who was acquired just a conference or two back) the lead guard. They still have the reigning PBA Most Valuable Player (which keeps on feeling more and more like a joke these days) in Arwind Santos and the league's potentially most dominant player in the young Junemar Fajardo so the pieces are still there.


We can sit and sulk (together with the rest of the upset Beermen fans) but let's not be quick to pull the trigger here (as is the philosophy of the entire San Miguel corporate umbrella).

The Beermen have young pieces in Ross, Mercado, Fajardo, Marcio Lassiter, Chris Lutz and Doug Kramer. Those guys are as solid as you can get from a team of mid 20 year olds. They've traded away some superstars to make room for role players which is always a good thing in terms of overall balance. There seems to be some sort of chemistry with certain players (Ross-Mercado, Lutz-Lassiter), so that couldn't and shouldn't be the fault here.

It all comes down to playing and wanting to win together.

Chris Ross stuck his neck out late in the game by trying to pull a Rajon Rondo, breaking up an Express mid-game huddle all by his lonesome.

But instead of having his guys watch over him and back him up when the Express rightfully pushed and shoved Ross out of their huddle, no one bothered to come in and do anything about it.

"You're on your own son."

Another thing that the Beermen may want to look on is their rotation. We're not entirely sure what's going on with Lutz, but his game has gone missing the last two conferences. Does he want out of the roster? Is he quietly trying to push for a trade? A Ross-Mercado tandem looks damn good on paper, but when the defences are set, both guards can't be relied on to make successive jump shots to save their lives.

That also leaves the Beermen with Paolo Hubalde, who looks like a basketball player but is a journeyman at best, to run things. Hell, couldn't Todd Purves pry Froilan Baguion out of his ABL contract since we've had a renaissance of 5 foot nothing point guards lately?

After all of that's been handled or at least, addressed, let's move to the "fall guy."

The guy who should be taking the last shot, making the game-winning plays and just fighting until the very end. Let's take a look at the MVP.

Arwind Santos.

There was a tweet we read in the Express-Beermen match that went something like "Arwind Santos needs to demand for the basketball."

We replied, "to do what?"

That wasn't sarcasm. That was an honest question. Santos calls for the basketball, what will he do? Launch a three? Because, if you've been paying close attention, Santos is the last guy on earth who's going to beat his man off the dribble.

BECAUSE HE CAN'T.

His game has always been built around hustling for put backs, playing solid defense and doing all the dirty work. The numbers are generated by that. Lately, he's been padding his stats with taking a number of shots compared to back in the day when he'd take care of his own business and just work for his "garbage" points.

So don't blame the MVP if he didn't take charge. It's not his game. It's not in his nature. Making stops is, making plays? Not so much.

This conference, we've seen Santos "tone it down" a bit. He's willingly deferring at times, which is a good sign moving forward.

Pretty sure that Santos doesn't want to go the Cabagnot, Washington route now.

So let this loss go. Learn from it, bounce back strong. Keep the band together. Make some MINOR changes if you really have to but keep the core for another conference.

Rome wasn't built in a day.