And We Meet Again

5:31:55 AM | 4/28/2013 | Sunday

Here we go again – another ageless rivalry on the hard court. How many times have we seen these two teams clashing against each other for the past few years?

           

Title-favorite Talk ‘N Text Tropang Texters and the crowd-favorite Barangay Ginebra San Miguel on the semifinals match yet again for the nth time.

Both have a stunning line-up – teams consisting of remarkable talents and names. Both teams that have this huge capability to put up big stuff on the stats sheets and entertainment’s highlight reels.

And perhaps the most stunning of them all, both TNT and Ginebra are part of the lower-seeded teams that managed to throw a bunch of improbable upsets over their previous rivals. Yes, they were both the underdogs. Well, a few weeks ago, it seems that TNT are much capable of beating Petron way back more than Ginebra can beat Rain Or Shine…

…Until V-Mac came along to help the people’s champ. Look, the Gin Kings have a very unusual rough start until they got this guy who’s been a major recipient of Lewis Alfred Tenorio’s eye in the sky passes. They were doing much better until Mark Caguioa got injured. But come to think of that 9-4 record since Vernon Macklin take over as their reinforcement for the squad, eh? With Chris Ellis flying a la Air Force on the fast break; Kirby Raymundo slowly returning to his form as The Kid, something the way he used to be with the Purefoods squad way back then; Jay-jay Helterbrand and Rudy Hatfield providing the veteran leadership (speaking of which, I miss that H-Bomb hype).

On the other end, Talk ‘N Text has been trying to sustain their form from their All-Filipino championship. Look, they badly earned the right to bag that perpetual trophy as the Tropang Texters won 3 straight Philippine Cup titles. But then, struggles came along their way as they only managed to finish at sixth place. Still, a dangerous team to watch especially Jimmy Alapag can knock down shots from way downtown. Ali Peek may be too small for the center position, but his built says he is very capable to man the middle. Also, so many dynamic forces for the inside and outside guys like Kelly Williams (well, unfortunately, we can't include him on the list for a while since he's been out indefinitely for the season due to his illness), Jared Dillinger, Ranidel de Ocampo, Jason Castro and Ryan Reyes.

Perhaps the TNT squad has an edge over the GSM team in terms of coaching experience. Coach Alfrancis Chua was a one-time champ with the Sta. Lucia Realty while Norman Black was already a houseold name for the Pinoy basketball aficionados for being a grandslam coach. Ironically though is that both were part of the coaching staff of the Realtors.

Well, let’s see on who will prevail on this best-of-5 semifinal series which I'll be labeling as survival of the packed underdogs. Yes, even if they're all had their own star-studded lineup, they ended up on the lower-part of the current tournament's playoff seeding, and I think this will be definitely, a test of their test of respective wills to win them all. The questions is that will Talk 'N Text make it to the big dance (and hopefully, will challenge San Mig Coffee just in case the latter will make it to the finals)? Or BGSM will screw them up like they did a few years back? If basketball fans can remember, TNT was on the verge of sweeping Ginebra until their never-say-die foe fought all the way back - and include that walkout made by the Tropang Texters - to steal the series on the sudden-death.

Well, again, let's see.

Author: slickmaster | © 2013 september twenty-eight productions