One More for PBA Book of 'Firsts' (Sports Weekly, 1980)

Sports Weekly Magazine

August 29-September 5, 1980

Peter N. Acosta

 

 

            For a season which pad produced more than its share of unusual occurrences, PBA ’80 came up with yet another as Crispa reached for its third straight victory halfway through the double round eliminations of the Invitationals.

 

            The Jeansmakers, winners of their first two games in the series, didn’t make it, blowing a 114-110 decision to the visiting tall and tough Adidas quintet. It was, however, Crispa’s setback that made this a game that will no doubt go down in the PBA’s book of “firsts” but what happened in the closing minute and a half.

           

            It was a stupefying windup.

           

            Consider these:

 

            With 1:28 left in the game clock and Adidas out front by seven points, 109-102, Adidas playing coach Bill Sweek reacted angrily to a mandatory timeout rule after he had called an injury timeout on George Gooden. This was after an earlier foul call had set up Crispa’s Sylvester Cuyler to a stint on the free throw line.

 

            Claiming that he didn’t call a timeout, Sweek banged the officials’ desk with his palms and then kicked a rule book in the air.

 

            For this outburst, Sweek was slapped with two technical fouls by referee Ting Cruz which Atoy Co, playing one of his best games in the series, converted. After which, Cuyler took his turn on the foul line to sink his two free throws.

 

            With that unusual stint from the free throw line which came on two technical and a regular foul committed on a player in the act of shooting, Crispa brought down Adidas’ lead to three, 109-106.

 

            But although losing its coach who was thrown out of the court by referee Cruz, Adidas refused to crack up. On the next play, when the game was resumed after an uproar sparked by Sweek’s tantrum, Gooden, one of the two shortest men in the Adidas lineup, knocked in a short jumper to give his team a five-point lead, 111-106, the time down to 1:11.

 

            Co pumped in one from the side to again close the gap, and it looked like Crispa had a chance to further narrow down Adidas’ lead when the Shoemakers were forced into a violation of the 25-second-must-shoot rule after Co’s shot.

 

            But when Byron “Snake” Jones missed a forced jumper and the 6’5 Randolph Owens made good a three-point stint after scoring and then converting from the 15-foot line on a foul called on Jones, Adidas had the game on ice.

 

 

 

            It was a numbing finish for a Crispa team which, after a slow start, had taken a nine-point lead at the half and then had gone into the last period with a seven-point margin at 90-83.

 

            A 12-4 flurry in the first four minutes of the fourth sent Adidas out front by two, 96-94, and then by seven twice, the last time when playing Coach Sweek went into that costly tantrum that almost cost Adidas the game.

 

            Earlier, Crispa’s Philip Cezar also caused an uproar when he touched off a brief brawl among some spectators in the ringside seats behind the goal after he had reacted violently against a heckler.

 

            Compared to this, however, Sweek’s outburst was something.

 

            Sweek, of course, had an explanation for it. “I never called a timeout,” he declared. “If that was a local rule, they should have informed me about it earlier.”

 

            He was still fuming when he said, but somehow, his ire at having been ejected seemed to have been saved by his team’s victory on two clutch hits by Gooden and Owens.

 

            One thing he can’t understand though, he said, was how it seems his team almost always get a lot of foul calls from the referees. “It’s always been like this,” he said. “We’re supposed to be the taller team, and yet, we get all the fouls.”

 

            With his clutch jump shot, Gooden, a former draftee of the Detroit Pistons in the NBA upped his evening’s total to 20 points, the highest for Adidas. For Crispa, the top man was Co who finally recorded his first 30-point output in the five-team Invitationals.

Dante's Knightmare (Sports World, 1976)

Sports World Magazine

August 28 – September 3, 1976

Tito Tagle

 

 

            Your adventurous SW reporter set out to cover Cabanatuan’s PBA game between Noritake and Royal Tru-Orange Saturday. Betwixt intent and accomplishment lay not only an egg but a trail of hardship. For I’ve never motored to Cabanatuan, and in this case, one plus one was three: I merely asked friends who’ve been there how the road was and the reply was excellent. Since whenever I went north beyond Pampanga, I always passed through a junction in San Fernando which, I had been told not just once, led to Arayat and on to Cabanatuan, I presumed that this was the excellent road spoken of.

 

            After an hour and 10 minutes of rugged terrain during which I got to the foot of Mount Arayat only to be told that the bridge toward Cabanatuan had gone down in the last typhoon (yet!), I finally exited at the San Fernando junction, motored back to the North Diversion road and took the correct way to Cabanatuan via Plaridel and Baliuag.

 

***

 

I finally made it to the Travel Lodge – where the PBA entourage roosted for the day – at around 6:15PM, or five hours since I started from Manila.

 

 

 

            Of course, none of my PBA friends believed me.

 

            Anyway, exciting as that Cabanatuan game was (Noritake won after an overtime, 139-133, while RTO’s Carl Bird reset the season’s individual game record with an output of 53), the PBA game of the week remained U/Tex’s triumph over Toyota Thursday last week.

 

            The score was 113-103, but it was only in the last three minutes when the issue was really decided.

 

***

 

            U/Tex coach Narciso Bernardo’s key move was the recall of Lee Haven from the scorer’s box where he waited to lift 6’10 Dan Knight, and the key play – ironically – was a miss by Knight from the charity lane which prevented Haven’s immediate entry.

 

 

 

            Knight had just tied the score at 97-all off Howard Smith’s fifth foul when he missed his second charity. Lim Eng Beng got the rebound and drilled in the takeover basket, 99-97.

 

***

 

            Byron (Snake) Jones, who (despite game’s outcome), certainly has the better moves and is speedier than the hulking Knight; for that matter, Smith is faster than Knight though foul-prone, subbed at the last three minutes point, and promptly missed a hook, Knight recovering. Rudolf Kutch drilled from the side for 101-97. Sonny Jaworski missed a jumper, Knight recovering. Lim Eng Beng banked one for 103-97.

 

            The game down to just 50 seconds, was far from over. Jones had charitied twice off Kutch’s sixth and final foul, and Dante Silverio had ordered the damning press that might have still turned the tide of battle. But Bernardo had one timeout left, and he used it to fashion out the final strategy to foil Toyota’s bid to reverse the impending outcome.

 

***

 

            Dante’s gamble was to two – or even three-man the ball carrier, and in the event of failure to recover, foul for possession. So, Odie Segura, Francis Arnaiz and Jaworski committed six fouls in those last 50 seconds of play.

 

 

 

            Unfortunately for Toyota, Lim Eng Beng was on the receiving end on four occasions, and the ex-Quasar star delivered twin charities each time to finalize the margin at 10 points.

 

***

 

            Victory for U/Tex would have been impossible, however without the brilliant Kutch, who routed Mon Fernandez in a beautiful display between two of the country’s best slotmen turned forwards. Kutch delivered 31 points, and almost half of these came when Toyota threatened to break away in the closing minutes of the third quarter and early in the fourth.

 

            Against Kutch’s 31 points, Fernandez could only make 10 – testimony to the defensive difficulties Mon ran into which greatly whittled his normal output.

 

***

 

            During intermission, NMPC’s Emy Arcilla took the mike and made an appeal for contributions for Mindanao’s earthquak victims. Dante Silverio made a pledge of Php 50,000 – Php 14,000 from the 14 Comets and Php 36,000 from management. Tommy Manotoc, U/Tex team manager, also pledged in behalf of his company Php 50,000. The some-20 girls who went around for contributions in the ringside, lower box and upper box sections, garnered Php 4,312.71. The bleacherites must have added a good sum to the take after the game, Emy told them the girls be waiting at the exits.

 

            It was the best move of the evening.