Philippine basketball sports has started to develop a small but vibrant community on Twitter, and Fire Quinito rounds up the best messages from athletes, broadcasters, and fans, in 140 characters or less.




Here’s hoping that when we vote for Chris Tiu as our president in 25 years – you know, after he serves as Manny Pacquiao’s vice president for 6 years – he’ll still have a full head of hair.




I miss Ed Picson doing the coverage. Always loved him, especially kapag binabara niya si Quinito.




Nice. I wonder though if there’s a workout to make Dyan a better boxing announcer.




Yeah, go for it Boyet! Just remember: Flirting on Twitter is ok, but writing love letters leads to disbarment.




Cool. And it’s high praise too, because Howie and I have spoken before about David Halberstam’s classic “The Breaks of the Game.” Also, if you missed it, he left a comment on the post about his James Yap documentary, and called The Genius “cutie coach Ryan.”




And the fans concur. Ayos si Coach ah, parang (500) Days of Summer lang eh noh.




An underrated, amusing part of Howie’s documentary: FEU center Aldrech Ramos chilling out wearing a jejecap.




Had a nice, quick chat with Mico after last night’s game. He’s one of my favorite sportscasters. Plus, he gives hope to all of us short guys who want to be involved in basketball. Also, he’s married to Pia Arcangel, so that gives us even more hope. I should probably stop writing now before I get into trouble.

Anyway, I had a good time at the game even though Derby Ace lost. Speaking of which...




Yeah, this was after Marc Pingris had a monster, two-handed putback slam dunk to cut the San Miguel lead to 4. The Beermen called timeout, and the arena DJ played Baby. Pati pagkatalo ng Purefoods, kasalanan pa rin ni Bieber. While we’re on the subject of music…




If there ever was a Sweetest Tweets hall of fame, Robbie Reyes would be a first-ballot inductee.

Nice, rainy Friday, with a couple of huge PBA games tonight: Rain or Shine versus Ginebra for an outright quarterfinals spot, and Derby Ace versus San Miguel for an automatic semifinals berth. Just how important is that semis spot, particularly for Derby Ace? My main man, Ryan “The Genius” Gregorio has never lost a semifinals series in his PBA career.

Meanwhile, some good reads to tide you over till tipoff:

• Charles Tiu, the younger brother of Smart Gilas team captain and all-around good guy Chris Tiu, wrote a good blog post on Yahoo! about the recently-concluded Manila invitational tournament. He’s a little biased, sure, but his post has got a lot of great tidbits for Gilas fans: “During the awarding ceremonies, I approached Coach Mario Palma and told him that as an Asian, I wish that his team will do well and represent Asia well in the World Championships. Without introducing who I was, he said thank you, gave me a hug and told me to give my brother a hug (he said we look alike and that’s how he knew) because he was a great player and he wasn’t able to congratulate him. I couldn’t have been any prouder after hearing a coach like that have such high regard for my brother.”


• The Philippine Star’s Joey Villar reported yesterday that Ray Parks, son of legendary PBA import Bobby Parks, will be suiting up for NU next year. Is that accurate? Doesn’t the UAAP have a two-year residency rule for players coming from foreign high schools? Parks has been playing high school ball in Tennessee.
  
  UPDATE: Ray is in the Philippines right now, and it isn’t clear whether he’s going back to Tennessee’s Melrose Academy for senior year in high school. If he spends the year in a local high school, then he’d be eligible for the UAAP next season. I think.


• Ugh. GMANews.TV reports that Air 21’s Lito Alvarez is likely to be named the next commissioner of the Burea of Customs. I hope he doesn’t run the bureau the same way he ran Air 21, where he sold players and helped richer teams cheat by acting as conduit in lopsided trades. The appointment feels like a political ploy; Alvarez’ boss, Bert Lina, was BOC commissioner for several months before he resigned from the Arroyo cabinet along with the Hyatt 10. If there’s any bright side to this, at least Alvarez will be out of the PBA. I hope he stays out. Hell, I hope Air 21 sells its useless franchise already.


• The Queensberry Rules is my favorite boxing blog bar none, and I really enjoyed the latest piece: The Six Deadly Sins of Internet Boxing Writing. It doesn’t just apply to boxing though, but all kinds of Internet writing. Good read for both fans, who should know what to expect from Internet writers, and for aspiring writers and bloggers.


• Finally, happier moments for Kris and James, which happened just this March. Makes you wonder what the hell happened between then and now.

I rushed to the Ninoy Aquino Stadium tonight after a long day of work in the field just in time for the tipoff of Smart Gilas versus the Jordan national team. Gilas actually played well in the first half, taking a first quarter lead and keeping in step with the taller Jordanians at halftime.

But Jordan, the bronze medal winner at last year’s Fiba-Asia championship, stepped up its attack in the third quarter, taking a 58-50 lead at the end of the period. They turned the game into a laugher in the fourth quarter, using a 15-4 run to take a 19-point lead before Gilas rallied to make the score respectable, 83-75.

Like most of the other fans in the stadium, I ended up drenched after the game, adding insult to injury. It always sucks to watch a team with the words “Pilipinas” across the chest losing.

Some thoughts on the game:

• Marcus Douthit twisted his ankle in the second quarter, which could have affected his performance, even after he returned later. But my first impression is that he’s solid, but not as talented or explosive as CJ Giles.


• Gilas’ best five was its small-ball lineup with Jayvee Casio, Chris Tiu, Marcio Lassiter, Mac Baracael, and Greg Slaughter after Douthit went down. Lassiter, Baracael, and Casio hit several three-pointers to keep Gilas in the game.


• Slaughter was especially impressive. He wasn’t exactly smooth, but he played solid man-to-man and help defense, and ran the floor well. He even had a two-handed follow-up dunk on the break.


• On the flip side, I’m worried about the rest of the guys in the rotation. Chris Lutz looks like he hasn’t adjusted to the system yet, while Mark Barroca, Dylan Ababou, and Japeth Aguilar looked very tentative, like they were worried about being yanked from the game by Coach Rajko Toroman if they missed a shot or were late on a defensive rotation. It’s like they’re constantly looking over their shoulder to see if someone’s going to the scorer’s table to check in for them.


• Actually, Aguilar deserves his own bullet point. His confidence is just completely shattered, and Toroman looks like he’s much, much, much more comfortable having the 6’3” Baracael out there at power forward instead of the 6’10” Aguilar. With seconds to go before the end of the third quarter, Toroman took out Aguilar, and the coach started screaming at the player’s face, ignoring the rest of the action until the buzzer sounded. Japeth didn’t even look like he was listening anymore, just walking to the very end of the bench. He never returned, as Toroman went with the twin tower combination of Douthit and Slaughter.
  
  The Gilas management might want to consider shipping Aguilar out of the team, perhaps to Talk N Text as replacement for Kelly Williams. Maybe, with nurturing from Chot Reyes and Norman Black, Aguilar’s confidence can be nursed back to health and his immense potential could still be salvaged.


• Gilas needs to improve its zone offense; Jordan went on its big run by playing a 2-3 zone.


• If Williams and Ryan Reyes end up joining Smart Gilas, they’d be taking the minutes of Aguilar and Barroca, ironically the two guys we all thought would be carrying the team last year.


• Near the end of the game, Gilas got a steal and passed ahead to Jayvee Casio, who muffed a fastbreak floater in the lane against Rasheim Wright. Toroman got in his face and started screaming about Casio’s miss, gesturing wildly for a while about how Casio should have done it.
  
  There are two ways to look at this sequence. One is that Coach Rajko, ever the perfectionist, expects only the very best from his players. The other is that, well, that was a tough shot for Casio, and Toroman was being kind of a dick.


• If Jordan beats the Dongguan Leopards tomorrow, which they should, Gilas would have another shot at Jordan on Sunday.

Ah crap. On the heels of the launch of Rafe Bartholomew’s book on Philippine basketball, one that would hopefully give the rest of the world a more nuanced look at our passion for the game – something beyond “Hey, those Filipino guys are really short, and they play a game for tall men?” and “They have a team called the Hotdogs?! The Tender Juicy Hotdogs?!” – comes this entry on Deadspin about our beloved Chris Tiu.

Apparently, someone* created a website called “Draft Chris Tiu,” which makes the case for teams like the Milwaukee Bucks and the Minnesota Timberwolves to take everyone’s favorite Smart Gilas team captain/Pinoy Records host/commercial model/Sangguniang Kabataan chairman at the upcoming NBA draft. Apart from making the case for Tiu as a player, the site provides comprehensive scans of Tiu’s print endorsements that can be described as mildly creepy. Also, this: “Talented, charming and backed by a number of corporate sponsors, like Beckham, Chris has millions of adoring fans not only on his team, but on the opposing teams as well.”

Then again, as the Deadspin headline suggested, drafting a slow, unathletic Filipino might just be what the doctor ordered for the T-Wolves; with the mad genius of Minny GM David Kahn, you never know– he might end up playing Ellen to Chris Tiu’s Charice Pempengco. If Tiu to the NBA does happen, at the very least, I can make a lot of dough selling shirts with this design:



* Upon checking, it turns out that the guy who created the website is an old acquaintance I used to play pickup hoops with a few years ago. Weird.