Remember
that heartbreaking Lee Sang Min buzzer-beater
that dashed the hopes of the Philippines
to claim at least a silver medal finish in the 2002 Asian Games?
Please
do.
Because
it’s payback time!
In a
couple of hours, the honor of going to the qualifiers is the task at hand for Philippines and Korea. For Korea, this
is not an unusual situation. For Smart-Gilas
Pilipinas, this is very, very important. Let’s just brush off the Jordan loss because I guess this is
payback for messing up their psyche when Marcio
Lassiter and Chris Lutz were fielded in hastily without their knowledge.
But
hey, it’s not our fault that Hagop
and the rest of their cronies aren’t “in the know”.
Anyway,
with Jordan hoping to score a less “stressful” loss against the Chinese team,
we have a chance to end this tournament with a win. A very, very awesome win!
Now I
don’t know how they’ll get the win and I won’t even speculate. All I know is
that if we are angry as hell at Jordan and we want to vent our frustrations on
Korea. Rajko Toroman will probably
use the dreaded man-to-man defense to stop Korea from unloading the jumpers and
he’ll probably place Marcus Douthit on
Ha Seung-Jin. Moon Tae Jong aka Jarod Stevenson played his worst scoring
performance in the tourney against China and I bet my balls Toroman will
unleash Chris Lutz to make the Kor-Am struggle.
I’ll
rather have Smart-Gilas start slow than end weak so I am betting on a powerful
second half to seal the deal for the Nationals. Everyone must step up and every
person in that core must be liable to whatever turnover, missed attempt, and missed
rebound they make. I am certain that a bunch of shockers will be needed because
it was easy for Jordan to see what we have in store for them because they have
scouted our guns. Yes, I am insinuating the use of Japeth Aguilar and Mac Baracael. This is the story for Gilas – we have
a problem with size but all 12 men can ignite a mind-boggling rally! So this
also means that Jimmy Alapag, Chris Tiu,
JV Casio, Ranidel De Ocampo, Kelly Williams, Asi Taulava, and Mark Barroca
must step up!
GROUP
EFFORT EVERYONE!
But
the good news is that our bad scoring night will end tomorrow! I have that gut
feeling that they will play with so much fire and they’ll burn the Koreans with
their inside game and torrid defense. This is not the 2002 team that only
played for the gold and never cared less of the bronze medal. This is the team
that for two years spilled blood, sweat, and guts to get the recognition
Smart-Gilas deserves!
We are not here to choke.
We are here TO WIN!
If this is Slam Dunk, I'd compare China to Kainan, Korea to Ryonan, and Philippines to Shohoku. Shohoku failed to score an outright entry but they won their do or die match against Ryonan and after that, Sakuragi and company improved leaps and bounds in the main tourney!
We
should be proud of the accomplishments that the Smart-Gilas squad got. But
maybe we should be angry! Smart-Gilas should be angry! They expected to cream
the competition and they wanted to win the 2011
FIBA-Asia Championship badly! Olsen
Racela’s missed free throws, Jong
Uichico’s inability to make smart coaching decisions, and that Lee Sang Min
triple in 2002 was actually the start of the PBA’s declining ratings and low
attendance on games that aren’t Ginebra.
Now the PBA is recovering but this is solely because we are reclaiming our international
prestige.
So
imagine what wonders we can do once we got to the qualifiers.
I know
we shouldn’t count the eggs before they hatch but like I said... imagine it.
LET’S
GO GILAS!
Game
over!
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