Heart and Sol

Follow the leader
(Photo courtesy of Sports5)

There are hundreds, nay, thousands of approaches to the sport of Chess. Some prefer to attack early, others, to lie in wait while a few choose to read the person seated before them. One strategy is to allow your offensive pieces to do the brunt of the dirty work, to have your Pawns, Bishops, Knights and Rooks wreak havoc before unleashing the Queen as your ultimate closer.

Think of the GlobalPort Batang Pier, now carrying an unexpected 4-3 winning card in the PBA Philippine Cup, as something of the sort. While neophyte scoring prodigy Terrence Romeo and “buddy” Ryan Roose Garcia earn praises and headlines with their high-level offense and PBA-ready game, when the games are tight and the chips are down—that’s when we see who the team’s real “anchors” are on both ends of the floor: the Fil-Am veteran pair of Jay Washington and Sol Mercado.

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.