Last Sunday, with little fanfare about the night’s event, 13,000 fans trooped to the Araneta Coliseum to watch an early season game between Ginebra and Purefoods (and perhaps, the matchup between the returning Mark Caguioa and James Yap). They didn’t seem to mind the dark cloud looming over the league with the Wynne Arboleda incident, or the mushrooming negative sentiment all over the Internet against the league after Powerade Team Pilipinas’ debacle in the Fiba-Asia Championship.

The people who attended the game were treated to an exciting ball game by the league’s two most popular teams (a 2008 SWS survey found that Ginebra had the biggest following in Luzon, but fans from the Visayas and Mindanao preferred Purefoods). It was a fun, action-packed 48 minutes, with the players going hard and making big plays. Ginebra coach Jong Uichico masterfully lured Purefoods’ Ryan Gregorio into playing small-ball with a junk zone defense, neutralizing the Giants’ size advantage. Purefoods almost won anyway—does any other PBA team win in spite of its coach?—behind James Yap’s game-long brilliance and Peter June Simon’s balls of steel. But Ginebra came through, behind big plays from Jayjay Helterbrand, Willie Wilson (who had a career game outplaying Kerby Raymundo), and Ronald Tubid, who was just plain electric throughout the whole second half while hamming it up for the crowd.

It’s a popular chorus that the PBA is a dying league, for so many reasons. It usually comes from people who were never big fans of the league in the first place, or who haven’t been in a while, or who do not know what they’re talking about. A few months ago, I argued that the perception that PBA players play passionless ball (compared to, say, NBA players) is probably not true, or at least, fair. Last year, former Solar Sports executive Jude Turcuato pointed out that PBA viewership actually dwarfs that of the UAAP.

Last Sunday, the PBA was alive and well and beaming and vibrant. A friend of mine wrote about how her husband (a Ginebra fan) took their five-year old to the game, and the boy had a helluva time. It’s been a good opening week for the league, the Wynne incident notwithstanding.

Some more basketball related thoughts about the first week of the new season, after the jump.

Oh shut up. You know you’re going to click and read every link in this post. Kunyari ka pa.



Lolit Solis claims that the Carla Abellana-JC Intal breakup is just a gimmick, so fans would be fooled into thinking that Carla is available to fall in love with her Rosalinda leading man Geoff Eigenmann. Manay Lolit posts as proof pictures of the couple together.

Kris Aquino and James Yap have set their church wedding for October next year, which is, oddly enough, right in time for the opening of the new PBA season. Also, as a Purefoods fan, I’m just happy that Kris is not in charge of James’s career, because if she were, Kris would have her husband play for the Coca-Cola Tigers, according to this Rey Joble blog post.

Mommy Dionisia Pacquiao, mother of the people’s champion Manny Pacquiao, will star opposite Ai-Ai de las Alas and former President Joseph Estrada in Star Cinema’s Ang Tanging Pamilya.

What’s keeping Chris Tiu busy apart from playing for Smart Gilas? Apparently, according to Dolly Ann Carvajal, flirting away with Wilma Doesnt.

Nonito Donaire, one of the best pound-for-pound boxers in the world, was eliminated in the latest round of Celebrity Duets. He’s still a better singer than Manny Pacquiao though.



Valerie Concepcion denies that she’s in a relationship with Wowowee host Willie Revillame. She does confirm though that she and Dondon Hontiveros are still dating and "enjoying each other’s company."

Another Wowowee co-host, RR Enriquez, celebrated her birthday and her wish? To have a boyfriend. Last August, RR denied rumors that she was seen torridly making out with Jayjay Helterbrand in public.

Powerade Team Pilipinas stalwarts Jared Dillinger, Gabe Norwood, Asi Taulava, Jayjay Helterbrand, Japeth Aguilar, and Ryan Reyes hit the streets of Beijing shortly after the Fiba-Asia Championships and sampled some of the exotic local food. Dillinger and Norwood are both providing updates on Twitter, along with other PBA players Kelly Williams and his brother-in-law Lamont Waters.

I wasn’t able to tweet during the Team Pilipinas game versus Kuwait or post a quick report on it because I was out late partying with Lady Gaga last night. Just kidding. Anyway, this morning, my friends who went to the show couldn’t get over the size of her penis.

Oh, right, the game. Team Pilipinas won over Kuwait, 85-71, and the game was apparently so unremarkable that a minor commotion erupted on Twitter about the pronunciation of the Kuwait. I’m just glad Andy Jao wasn’t involved; otherwise, people would be flooding my email again demanding that I burn him at the stake.

Team Pilipinas now prepares for a tough quarterfinal outing against the loser of tonight’s showdown between China and Jordan, which is probably going to be Jordan. I don’t want to look ahead, and I feel like I’ve said enough about that match-up. I just think that while we would decidedly be underdogs, we have a fighting chance. That’s all we could hope for at this point.

Anyway, while we’re here, let’s talk about a couple of stories that came out this morning. There was this filler piece posted on GMA News titled “Wanted: Caidic-like triggerman for RP team.” I read that and thought to myself, “Wow, what an absolute piece of garbage.”

First, it’s unfair because since the Korea game, our perimeter game has been humming, and the outside shooting of our backcourt has been the key to our performance. It’s a slap in the face for Willie Miller, James Yap, Jayjay Helterbrand, and even Cyrus Baguio, who have been the heroes of this team.

Second, the Philippines will never run out of guards who can snipe; the 2002 Asian Games team and the 2007 Fiba-Asia team did fairly well from the perimeter, even if neither team had a gunner as good as Caidic on the roster. The writer could have written “Wanted: Kobe Bryant-like scorer for RP team” or “Wanted: Tim Duncan like inside presence for RP team” and he would have been more accurate.

Team Pilipinas coach Yeng Guiao also made the sports headlines as he called for the PBA to continue representing the country in international competitions by forming a pool that would play regularly during PBA break. It's an idea with which I wholeheartedly agree. I believe that the best players in the country should represent us in international play, and with apologies to the Smart Gilas Developmental Team, they’re not the best players in the country. Who would you rather have taking the last shot for Team Pilipinas, James Yap or Chris Tiu? Mac Cardona or JV Casio?

Oh, and don’t throw the Northern Consolidated Cement national team analogy in my face. You know what else the NCC team had? Three imports: Dennis Still, Jeff Moore, and Chip Engelland. You could talk about the system till you’re blue in the face, but at the end of the day, between two teams with the same amount of preparation, talent wins.

Iran's Samad Nikkah Bahrami (right) drives hard against Jared Dillinger

Defending Fiba-Asia champions leaned on Memphis Grizzlies center Hamed Haddadi and superstar swingman Samad Nikkah Bahrami who combined for 46 points to turn back a game Team Pilipinas in a matchup between two countries with unpopular presidents and citizens who have taken to the microblogging platform Twitter. It can be recalled that protesters in Iran used Twitter earlier this year to protest the electoral victory of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while Twitter trends have been affected by various Filipino memes, most notably former President Corazon Aquino’s death, but also various other crap like the last SONA, the UP-Ateneo upset, and the book blockade.

Anyway, the game. Iran capitalized on another slow start by the Philippines, taking a 13-point lead at the end of the first quarter. The lead ballooned to as much as 24 points in the second quarter, and the game looked like it was going to be another cakewalk for the Persians, but timely sniping from James Yap and Gabe Norwood cut the lead down to a more manageable 17 points at the half.

Wary of the Filipino trend of strong third quarters, Iran went on a 6-0 tear to start the third quarter, with Bahrami, perhaps the best scorer in all of Asia, and Haddadi leading the way. Hot shooting from the Philipines righted the ship somewhat, and a James Yap buzzer-beater cut the lead down to 16 at the end of the third.

Team Pilipinas made things much more interesting in the fourth quarter, with Willie Thriller*, Jared Dillinger, and Yap raining three-pointers and cutting the lead down to 8. But the Philippines couldn’t capitalize on several defensive stops, as Haddadi’s huge shadow loomed over the paint, and Iran held on for the victory.

(* - Note to all broadcasters, bloggers, and fans: Let’s stop with this Willie “The Thriller” Miller garbage, and just go with Willie Thriller. It’s cooler, and it rolls off the tongue. Say it with me: Willie Thriller. Thank you.)

Unlike the previous games in the tournament, defense was the big problem for the Philippines, with our unathletic big men having all kinds of problems with Haddadi, and our swingmen unable to keep Bahrami out of the lane.

But there are still a lot of things to take away from this loss. Consider that without that awful first quarter, we pretty much stood toe-to-toe with the Iranians, who played HARD all game, by the way, and never took their foot off the gas pedal – Haddadi played 39 minutes and Bahrami 35, in the 40-minute game. We played much better defense in the fourth quarter, as Yeng Guiao played two centers, Asi Taulava and Mick Pennisi, together for most of the quarter, with one of them (usually Pennisi) camped out in the lane to disrupt Bahrami’s drives to the basket. We also shot well from the outside, hitting 16 three-pointers at a 37% clip, but it’s actually better than that when you consider that a couple of those shots were desperation attempts (i.e. Willie Miller’s halfcourt heave at the end of the second quarter, Sonny Thoss’s balibag-tae to beat the shot-clock buzzer).

So we’re playing well, not well enough to beat the Asian champs but enough to give them a mild scare. We should be able to take care of business against Kuwait tomorrow, and then it’s on to the knockout quarterfinal round.

We would most probably be matched up against Jordan in the quarters. They beat Team Pilipinas pretty badly in their debut game at the Jones Cup, but the Philippine team has gotten much better since. Better than Jordan? I don’t know. Good enough to beat Jordan on a very good day? I would imagine so.