There's so much to be said for the classic finals match-up between Ginebra and San Miguel, and we'll get to that in a bit, but first, I wanted to write about the semifinal victims: Rain or Shine, which finally ran out of gas against Ginebra, and Burger King, which got beaten from pillar to post by a rampaging Beermen squad, who were probably inspired by their hilarious new commercial.

Rain or Shine had a helluva year, more than doubling their win total from their first two seasons in the league here on their third year. They made a quick but major revamp of the team, anchored on two young studs, rookies Sol Mercado and Gabe Norwood. A third rookie, second-round pick TY Tang, emerged late in the season and looks like a starter in the league, or at the very least, a very good third guard.

This was one of the most well-coached teams in the league. They installed a great spread offense based on dribble penetration (something akin to John Calipari's dribble drive motion offense in Memphis the past couple of years), with their guards penetrating and kicking out to their three-point shooters.

It took a while before the other PBA coaches figured out their offense. Hell, I don't think Ryan "The Genius" Gregorio has figured it out yet, as Purefoods lost six five out of seven games to Rain or Shine this year, with their only victory coming off a questionable bailout call on the last play.

(UPDATE: As James Ty III pointed out in the comments, Purefoods did win an out-of-town game versus RoS early in the Fiesta Conference. Purefoods barely won that game too.)

They certainly busted their ass on defense too; it's a testament to their effort that they never got killed inside even though for most of the year, their power forward rotation consisted of Rob Wainwright and Eddie Laure (or as I like to call it, the MBA star forward pu-pu platter! I guess Max Delantes and Peter Naron weren't available).

Coach Caloy Garcia certainly deserves a lot of credit, after taking over for his mentor Leo Austria and turning the team around. But I'm curious as to who really was the architect behind the brilliant offense. I have no evidence, but I suspect that RoS assistant Alex Compton had a lot to do with it, having played NCAA Division 1 ball and presumably still updated about the coaching trends abroad. If I were running a PBA team and were searching for a new coach, I'd give Compton a very, very serious look.

Burger King had a good run this conference, but watching them get dominated in several games by the much deeper San Miguel squad made me realize how flawed this team was, and that Yeng Guiao's magic can only take a team so far.

For starters, Arwind Santos, who is their top gun on offense, is their only athletic defender. (No, Erick Rodriguez is most definitely not an athletic defender. The reason he ends up smacking people a lot in the face is because when he tries to block an opponent's shot, he's only able to reach up to the opponent's face when he jumps.) Gary David is seriously overrated -- he only plays well every other game, forces bad shots, is allergic to passing, and gets scored on more than Hayden Kho's girlfriends.

The rest of their players, like Aaron Aban and Mark Yee, are playing way over their heads, which is a problem when faced with San Miguel's talent, and the hype can sometimes go too far. In game 3 of the series, Quinito Henson tried to give Yee a nickname: "The Stinger". Which is just ridiculous on so many levels, since it doesn't have anything to do with anything, and because Yee's only played 11 games in the league. He's sooo far away from deserving a nickname. And after Dondon Hontiveros abused Yee on both ends of the floor during the series, a more appropriate nickname would have been "Dondon's Bitch" (with apologies to Valerie Concepcion).

What's frustrating is that Burger King probably would have ended winning the championship if they hadn't been selling their players left and right. Just this season, they've made the following moves:

1. Traded star forward Ranidel de Ocampo to Talk N Text for Don Allado's dead body and 500 pesos worth of load.


2. Traded KG Canaleta and Don Allado's dead body to Purefoods for Beau Belga's fat body and a pack of Purefoods king-size hotdogs.


3. Traded JC Intal and Doug Kramer to Ginebra for a future draft pick and a case of GSM Blue.


4. Traded star guard Celino Cruz to Ginebra for a future draft pick and a few bags of Ei-Aji potato chips.


5. Traded Celino Cruz to Purefoods for Aaron Aban and a pack of those round mini-hotdogs that you could stick in toothpicks with marshmallows.

Yes, I know I picked them to make the finals. Also, when Purefoods isn't playing, I usually cheer for the underdogs, but screw them. They don't deserve to win after all those moves.

(By the way, did you notice that Purefoods was in all these lopsided trades with Burger King, and yet they finished much lower than Burger King in the standings? It couldn't be the players, right?)