Pulling the pin
I rarely talk about the PBA. There’s nothing to talk about until recently when a young team staged an uprising of sorts. They’re not really “young” by definition. They had a bonafide star who lacks both recognition and support. For the better part of the decade, they haven’t made much noise. But now, the grenade’s pin has been pulled and Powerade is out to make believers.
Powerade was a middling team at best this season. Not one who’ll compete for a championship against a powerhouse team that has 100 times the star power their lone bright star has produced. But the underdog supporter in me says Powerade will give the defending champions a run for their money. Well, they should. The other side may have the current MVP, a former MVP, a shoo-in for an MVP, two former Rookie of the Year awardees among others, but the Tigers do boast of arguably the most destructive three-guard lineup. Each of those three can drop 30 a night and one of them has done it for five consecutive games.
In what seems to be a mish-mash of role players going up against a juggernaut Talk n Text team, man for man, the Tigers can match up with their effort. To go along with their scoring trio, they have Sean Anthony who’s the second coming of the H-Bomb (Rudy Hatfield), Rommel “The General” Adducul, Doug Kramer, Celino Cruz, Rudy Lingganay and Josh Vanlandingham. They mesh so well with their Big Three. It’s like a glove fitting a hand very well. And once the ball game is in dire straits, all they do is do one big pull on the pin of El Granada.
I tell you, Gary David will probably make Larry Fonacier and Jared Dillinger cry on defense that Chot Reyes will eventually put Machine Gun Kelly on him. Sure he can have a funk for over a quarter and a half, but when that quarter indicator reads four, might as well have a video camera on standby and watch a performance of epic proportions from the man known before as “Mr. Pure Energy” on the hardcourt. He has been an All-Star for the better part of his career and he should’ve been had it not been for shoddy fan voting. He did oust B-Meg by his sheer will, gunning down James Yap and the Llamados in a performance for the ages. He lacked help before. But now, two rookies are gonna be helping David hoist his first ever championship. That doesn’t bother JV Casio and Marcio Lassiter that much. They know that without them, Powerade wouldn’t be at this position.
Talk N Text may run roughshod on them in this series (the Texters are up 1-0 so far in the series), but whether that happens or not, as long as I see Lassiter, Casio and David lighting it up, I’m glad. It took them a long way to get there. The next step would be trying to find out the missing link, the fourth piece that can make them go over the top.
