To the naked eye, the last two games of the ongoing PBA Philippine Cup finals series between Purefoods and Alaska have been pretty much alike. They have been low-scoring games, with Purefoods pulling out the win at the last possessions.

The scores have been low because these teams play slow; as j_myxx of Patay ang Butiki pointed out in the comments of my post about game 1, these are the two slowest teams in the league. However, adjusting the scores for pace shows that the two games were vastly different: game 2 was a wild shootout, with each team going over the 100-point efficiency mark, while game three was a defensive struggle, as Purefoods barely topping 90 points while holding Alaska to 89.

	PF PTS	ALA PTS	PF EFF EFF	ALA EFF	POSS
Game 2	86	85	102.41	101.22	83
Game 3	79	78	90.78	89.63	87

The data is even more interesting when looking at Purefoods’ last six games (all wins), dating back to its semifinals series against San Miguel. Two things stand out: Purefoods is playing at its preferred slow pace, and there’s no rhyme or reason for their wins.



They’ve been winning in hoop-burning shootouts, and they’ve been winning in ugly defensive battles. To put it more succinctly, Ryan Gregorio’s boys have been finding ways to win ballgames.

Last night was no different. With James Yap and Kerby Raymundo (well, especially Kerby Raymundo) shooting miserably from the field, bench players Peter June Simon (in the first half) and KG Canaleta (in the second half) stepped up and hit big shots. Credit really must go to Purefoods coach Ryan Gregorio for sticking with those two guys and giving them the green light to shoot, even if it means allowing Canaleta to hoist up turnaround, fadeaway three-pointers. Also, Gregorio played Simon at point guard for a stretch in the first half, allowing the struggling super-sub to have the ball in his hands to run the pick-and-roll and shoot over LA Tenorio. Rookie Rico Maierhofer had a good stretch too, slithering his way to easy baskets around the hoop.

It helps Purefoods’ cause that they have Marc Pingris and Rafi Reavis wreaking havoc on the boards. It just brings such a different dynamic to the game for a shooter to know that he can throw it up, because he has those guys hanging around the paint waiting to clean up his mess.

Alaska started out fairly strongly, matching up with Purefoods with their own big-ball lineup, as Tim Cone inserted Reynel Hugnatan to start the game in lieu of Tony de la Cruz. The move forces Purefoods to guard Hugnatan with their small forward (usually Marc Pingris), which means Sakuragi couldn’t go out and harass either of Alaska’s guards out in the perimeter. Unlike with dela Cruz, Purefoods can’t get away with guarding Hugnatan with James Yap.

But big ball only works when you can actually go with a big lineup, and Alaska couldn’t go big when Sonny Thoss got into foul trouble. I’ve mentioned before in my post about Alaska and in my FHM preview that Thoss might be the Aces’ most important player, and it was on full display last night, as Purefoods feasted on them when he was on the bench. This is why the Samigue Eman pickup could potentially be so great for Alaska, because if the big guy can develop, the Aces wouldn’t have to take such a big hit when Thoss is chilling on the bench.

One more thing I’d like to note about the game last night was LA Tenorio starting to pull all his crap again. The flopping, the flailing, the posturing, the ‘incidental’ forearms he leaves on his defender before getting the ball on the inbounds, and just his general smarmy douchiness. He was in tip-top OA Tenorio form all game long, and I think that he squandered all of Alaska’s karma after game 2. The basketball gods do not suffer douchebags gladly.

Alaska now faces very tall odds in this series. Will they win? Probably not. Can they win? Since we started with some stats stuff, let me throw out this old post from ESPN’s John Hollinger writing about 0-3 comebacks in the NBA:

All 83 times that a team has taken a 3-0 lead in an NBA best-of-seven playoff series, it has gone on to win the series.

But somebody is going to be the first to buck the trend. It happened for the first time in baseball with the Red Sox a few years ago, and inevitably it will happen in basketball, too.

And when would it happen? Most likely with a team that's basically as good as its opponent.

The logic applies too in the PBA. If a comeback from a 0-3 deficit were to happen – and at this point, the chances are very, very slim – it would happen when two teams are evenly matched. Patay ang Butiki noted that, before the series, each team had practically the same point-differential over its opponents. Statistically, the teams were about the same. You can’t get more evenly-matched than that.

At the start of most PBA games, some announcer (usually Quinito Henson) would throw out some meaningless statistic like “If Purefoods holds Alaska down to less than 85 points, they’ll probably win the ballgame.” I keep waiting for them to say something like “If Purefoods holds Alaska to fewer points, they’ll probably win.” Yeah, and if they do it four times, they’ll win the series.

So I decided to crunch some numbers and apply some advanced statistics to Game 1 of the PBA Philippine Cup finals last night. I got the data from the last three games of each team, and computed for their offensive and defensive ratings, which are adjusted for the number of possessions in each game. Here’s what I found:

Alaska’s offense sputtered. In its last three games against Ginebra, Alaska scored 101.81 points per 100 possessions. Purefoods brought that number down to only 90.40 last night.



Purefoods’ defense is coming together. In games 4 and 5 of the San Miguel series, Purefoods burned the hoops by averaging 113 points per 100 possessions. However, they clinched the series with defense, holding San Miguel’s offensive rating to only 86.74 in game 6 of that series. They weren’t as great last night, but it was still pretty good.



They’re playing at Purefoods’ pace. In a way, the ‘hold them down to X points’ statistic is true, but not for the reason you think. In Purefoods’ case, it’s not so much a factor of the team defending well as much as it controlling the tempo. In each of Alaska’s last three wins over Ginebra, the game had at least 90 possessions, something that never happened during Purefoods’ games against San Miguel. Last night, the possession count was at 85, which is firmly in Purefoods’ comfort zone.



Alaska’s last four games

	TM PTS	OPP PTS	OFF EFF	DEF EFF	POSS
vs. Ginebra, Game 2	90	82	96.26	87.70	93
vs. Ginebra, Game 3	91	88	96.27	93.09	94
vs. Ginebra, Game 4	102	95	112.90	105.15	90
vs. Purefoods, Game 1	77	81	90.40	95.09	85

Purefoods’ last four games

	TM PTS	OPP PTS	OFF EFF	DEF EFF	POSS
vs. San Miguel, Game 4	97	84	113.32	98.13	85
vs. San Miguel, Game 5	94	82	113.93	99.39	82
vs. San Miguel, Game 6	87	78	96.75	86.74	89
vs. Alaska, Game 1	81	77	95.09	90.40	85

So how did Purefoods limit Alaska last night? Marc Pingris started the game on LA Tenorio, denying penetration and daring the spitfire point guard to shoot over him. Sakuragi also affected Tenorio’s passing with his long arms, blocking clean angles to passing lanes; notice how far outside the block Sonny Thoss had to go get the ball. It didn’t help that Tenorio drew the assignment to take James Yap (a matchup I talked about in a previous post), and the 2006 MVP was on fire, scoring 24 points on 14 shots.

In the second half, Pingris switched to Willie Thriller, but by then Tenorio was sufficiently cowed that he was no longer a factor. In fact, his backup, Brandon Cablay, had a better game in limited minutes.

Purefoods had great defensive energy all game, keeping their men in front of them in man-to-man sets while playing a very aggressive zone defense that extended out and stifled Alaska’s shooters. It remains to be seen, however, if they will be able to keep up this kind of defensive energy.

Curiously, this is the same defensive energy that carried Purefoods to the 2006 Philippine Cup title over Red Bull, with Pingris leading the way en route to being named finals MVP of that series. But I expect Tim Cone to come up with adjustments not just for his team to be able to score, but perhaps more importantly, to pick up the pace.

“Kung sa ice tubig nga, nagpapatayan sa barangay court, ngayon pa, eh milyon milyon ang bonus.”
-- Marc Pingris on the PBA finals

I loved this quote from Pingris because every Pinoy guy who has ever played basketball outdoors, in the playgrounds, in barangay courts, or in makeshift rings in the middle of the street could relate to what he said. All of us still remember those summer afternoon games with ice tubig as the wager.

I loved the quote because what Pingris is really saying is that, just like the intensity of those games he played back then weren’t really all about the ice tubig wager, the intensity of the games he’ll be playing today wouldn’t really be all about the millions in bonus.

I loved that memories of ice tubig games are still fresh in the minds of players like Pingris. And when you take away the lights of the Araneta and the glamour of the PBA finals, it’s the same game. Just on a bigger stage, just on a larger scale. But it’s essentially the same.

Except for the ice tubig.

[H/T: Francis TJ Ochoa for reporting the quote ]

Purefoods coasted to a very, very impressive victory over San Miguel last night, winning the last three games in the series comfortably. The team will be making its third Philippine Cup finals appearance in the last five years, an impressive feat by any measure, so even if I wanted to make fun of Purefoods coach Ryan Gregorio, there’s just nothing to hang it on. The man deserves his due.

I specifically enjoyed his move to do away with physical practices for his team, going instead with video sessions and light walkthroughs, to conserve his players’ legs. It’s a technique that some coaches such as Mike D’Antoni have used to great effect, and it worked for Purefoods.

At this point, I have complete faith in Ryan Gregorio’s coaching. If, in the finals, he decides, “You know what, I’m not even going to go to the arena to coach, I’ll just text my instructions to Coach Ronnie during the game,” I’d be totally behind it. Papasahan ko pa siya ng load.

While we’re at it, here are some thoughts on the Purefoods-San Miguel semifinals:

• Was there supposed to be a game 7 in the script? Ryan Gregorio must not have received the email from SMC. They really should call to make sure.


• I’ve kept reiterating this on this site, but it’s true: the San Miguel Beermen are a bunch of frontrunners, and players like Jonas Villanueva and Mike Cortez are more likely to play better when they have the lead. They don’t really know how to play when they’re behind. In the last three games of the series, San Miguel did not taste the lead for even a second.


• San Miguel has great depth, and they are a good team. Still, I don’t get the way announcers wet themselves when they call the Beermen roster ‘full of superstars’. Are we calling Jay Washington and Denok Miranda superstars now? In this series, two of the three best players were playing for Purefoods.


• Also, for all the depth San Miguel has, it’s just a terribly-constructed roster, isn’t it? They have only one small forward in the rotation (Arwind Santos) and only one shooting guard (Dondon Hontiveros). They have four point guards and one combo guard, none of whom could apparently contain Roger Yap. They have three guys who play power forward in Danny Seigle, Danny Ildefonso, and Jay Washington, but none of those guys can rebound and defend consistently, so Siot Tanquincen is forced to play Santos at that spot.
  
  This also means either Hontiveros or one of their midget guards has to play small forward. Their centers, Dorian Pena and Mick Pennisi, can clog the lane and score a little (Pena on layups, Pennisi on jumpers), but they’re both phone booth rebounders who are easy pickings for an athletic frontline such as the Purefoods crew. San Miguel just got killed in the paint, on offense, on defense and off the boards


• I’ve said before that Marc Pingris plays exactly like Hanamichi Sakuragi. Here’s something interesting: Purefoods hasn’t missed the finals in every conference wherein Pingris wasn’t injured. In the 2005-06 season, after acquiring him from Air 21, Purefoods made the finals both times. The next season, Pingris had a nasty ankle fracture, causing him to miss the end of the team’s Philippine Cup campaign and a significant chunk of the Fiesta Conference. In the 2007-08 Philippine Cup, Purefoods made the finals again with Pingris healthy, narrowly losing to Sta. Lucia in seven games. But the team traded him to San Miguel in between conferences for Enrico Villanueva, and Purefoods hasn’t made it back to the finals until they re-acquired Pingris prior to the start of the current season.
  
  It’s not a coincidence, and it’s not Pingris being a lucky charm a la Bolado. The success of Purefoods with Pingris in the roster underscores the significance of frontcourt length and athleticism in today’s PBA. More than that, Pingris is a difficult matchup for other frontcourts because of his motor, which is a rare commodity. Another guy with extraordinary motor, Rudy Hatfield, enjoyed similar success in the PBA. After the 2009 draft, Tim Cone said he took a flyer on unheralded prospect Michael Burtscher because of the young guy’s motor.


• Speaking of frontcourt length and athleticism, one way the Purefoods big men affected San Miguel’s game was on the break. The Beermen’s M.O. is predicated on leaking out and getting cheap points on the fast break, but Purefoods’ bigs were crashing the boards hard, forcing San Miguel’s guards to lay back and help out on defensive rebounding. I’d be interested in seeing how many fast break points San Miguel got off rebounds in the last three games of the series; it couldn’t have been much.


• Dondon Hontiveros is a great basketball player, and in so many respects, he is much better than James Yap; he’s a better ballhandler and passer (especially on pick-and-rolls), he’s a better defender, he’s a better rebounder off loose balls (although Yap might be a better rebounder when the ball is up in the air), and he’s a more accurate shooter when open (Yap is better when shooting with a hand in the face). But Yap has one big edge, an explosive first step that allows him to get to the ring easily, and makes him impossible to defend one-on-one. Hontiveros doesn’t have that explosion, so when he tries to take his man off the dribble, more often than not, he has to take the ball back out and settle for a jumper. This makes Yap infinitely more dangerous than Hontiveros, and allows him to have a much bigger impact on a basketball game.
  
  You could see this in play in the fourth quarter last night, when San Miguel started double-teaming Yap whenever he had the ball in the perimeter. Purefoods usually swung the ball to Roger Yap, who scored on a couple of drives in the clutch that put the game at bay off these plays.


• By the way, the Roger Yap bandwagon? I’ve been driving it since the year 2000. Welcome, everyone! Glad you could join us.


• Also, Cesca Litton mentioned in her report last night that James Yap was distracted because his wife, Kris Aquino, was in the hospital after slipping in the bathroom and suffering a concussion. I’m sure everyone’s glad she’s ok, but it makes me wonder: How much better would he be if he didn’t have to deal with, uh, being married to Kris? I mean, crap like Dr. Margie Holmes writing a lengthy article on Pep discussing the couple’s married life. Doesn’t he deserve a medal, at this point?


• While we’re on the subject, Kris Aquino tweeted last week treated that she her cast mates to some food for her birthday. You know what she brought to the set? Cupcakes! I wonder where she ordered them.

Next up, a post on Alaska.

After a crazy quarterfinal round, the stage is set for the PBA Philippine Cup final four. The cast features 3 teams that belong to the San Miguel Corporation, which again reinforces perceptions by the league’s critics that the PBA is an SMC league. Some even say that the PBA is set up so that SMC teams would always end up on the winning end of most tournaments.

The grand conspiracy argument doesn’t hold much water. If it were true, there’s no way Sta. Lucia would have won the 2008 Philippine Cup over Purefoods in a close seven-game series wherein James Yap was suspended for one game for the same flagrant 2 penalty called on Ranidel de Ocampo last Friday. Imagine David Stern suspending Kobe Bryant on an iffy call in an NBA finals series against a team like the Milwaukee Bucks.

That doesn’t mean to say that SMC teams do not have an advantage. The PBA landscape today gives the rich teams a leg up when it comes to acquiring talent, and each of the SMC teams have taken advantage to build up its arsenal.

By my count, Ginebra, Purefoods, and San Miguel have acquired a total of 19 players through lopsided trades over the past 5 PBA seasons. The trend started prior to the 2006-07 season, when Ginebra and San Miguel ransacked the roster of erstwhile sister team Coca-Cola just before the corporation let go of the franchise. Over the next several years, each SMC team found more willing partners in Red Bull and Air 21 who would let go of their star players for a song.

	Acquired by	From	Season	Notes
Marc Pingris	Purefoods	Air 21	2005-06	Traded to San Miguel for Enrico Villanueva in 2008, acquired back by Purefoods in 2009
Rudy Hatfield	Ginebra	Coke	2006-07	Went off the deep end after leading Ginebra to a Philippine Cup championship
Billy Mamaril	Ginebra	Coke	2006-07
Rafi Reavis	Ginebra	Coke	2006-07	Traded to Purefoods in 2009
Ronald Tubid	Ginebra	Air 21	2006-07
Lordy Tugade	San Miguel	Red Bull	2006-07
Enrico Villanueva	San Miguel	Red Bull	2007-08	Traded to Purefoods in 2008, traded to Ginebra in 2009
Larry Fonacier	San Miguel	Red Bull	2007-08	Traded to Alaska in 2008
Junthy Valenzuela	Ginebra	Red Bull	2007-08
Mick Pennisi	San Miguel	Red Bull	2008-09
Rich Alvarez	Purefoods	Red Bull	2008-09	Traded to Ginebra in 2009
Cyrus Baguio	Ginebra	Air 21/BK	2008-09
JC Intal	Ginebra	Air 21/BK	2008-09
Doug Kramer	Ginebra	Air 21/BK	2008-09
Homer Se	Ginebra	Air 21/BK	2008-09
Don Allado	Purefoods	Air 21/BK	2008-09
Celino Cruz	Purefoods	Air 21/BK	2008-09	Traded to Ginebra in 2009
KG Canaleta	Purefoods	Air 21/BK	2008-09
Arwind Santos	San Miguel	Air 21/BK	2009-10

The data does not reflect the indirect benefits of one SMC team acquiring new star players to its sister teams. For example, San Miguel benefitted when Ginebra acquired Hatfield, Mamaril, and Reavis from Coke, because it opened the door for the Beermen to trade for Ginebra’s Rommel Adducul, who had become expendable. When San Miguel acquired Villanueva, Adducul was shipped to Purefoods. Pingris found his way back to Purefoods from San Miguel this season after the arrival of Santos to the Beermen’s camp.

I also did not include in the table the first round draft picks acquired by the Beermen from Coke during the ransacking. San Miguel used the second overall pick in 2007 to draft Samigue Eman, and the third pick in the 2008 draft to trade for Jay Washington. These were non-trivial assets.

Of course, it’s not just the SMC teams doing this. Talk N Text has been just as brazen about stockpiling talent over the past several years. Another rich franchise, Coca-Cola, seems to be going in that direction.

Meanwhile, the Photokina (Red Bull/Barako Bull) and Lina (Air 21/Burger King) franchises have had no scruples about letting their players go to the highest bidders. Sta. Lucia, a franchise beset by financial difficulty, might be going down the same path. In the PBA board, only Alaska and Rain or Shine might be inclined to pursue changes to the system, and even then they are vastly outnumbered.

There hasn’t been nearly enough outrage from the fans. I tried to incite outrage when Burger King sold off Santos to San Miguel, but it was met by general apathy. The Filipino basketball fan’s mindset is rarely about playing fair, and mostly about getting an advantage at any cost. It runs true from college basketball – seriously, check out the message board discussions on high school prospects by fans of elite schools – up to the pros. Hell, think about how Smart Gilas fans wanted Japeth Aguilar on the team, at any cost, relationships be damned.

We want our teams to cut every corner to get the best players. Should it come as any surprise when they do exactly that?