In practice the next day, while the players broke into groups of three and practiced free throws, I asked Cone about the tension between his top two players. The coaching staff had warned him that Roe was starting to give up on Willie, but Cone didn’t want to hear it. “I don’t look for those things,” he said. “I don’t think they’re good games to play, and I don’t think there’s a whole lot you can do. You can’t force a guy to trust somebody else. So, if he’s losing his trust, it doesn’t hurt us to start our offense on the other side. But I think Roe’s smart enough that when push comes to shove and Willie’s playing well, then he will pass to him.” Against Talk ‘N Text, Cone expected much of the frustration the Aces felt against San Miguel to melt away. The defensive scheme that reduced Willie to a bumbling turnover machine was in the past, and Cone was talking about his star’s comeback as if it were a foregone conclusion. “Willie will have a big series,” he said, his eye on a grandmotherly fan hugging Willie for a photograph on the opposite side of the gym. “The team that we’re playing now is not the defensive team that San Miguel was, and they’re not nearly as disciplined, where they’ll recognize Willie every time and trap him. Their guards will be able to deny him but once he gets the ball it’s over.”
Cone was right about Willie and Roe. Willie returned to form against Talk ‘N Text, averaging 24 points through the first four games, with many of his baskets assisted by Roe, who, like the willing passer he had been all season, kicked the ball out for Willie’s three-point bombs and bounced passes through the lane to the slashing guard. Roe’s scoring and rebounding were steady as ever—he averaged 25 points and 15 boards. Both players won the expected accolades, with Roe hoisting a Best Import plaque that misspelled his name “Roselle Ellis” and Willie accepting the league’s Most Valuable Player trophy for the second time in his career. The stage seemed set for Alaska’s fairy-tale ending. There was only one problem: Alaska wasn’t winning.
The series was tied at two games apiece, and Alaska was fortunate not to be behind 3-1. Only in game one did Alaska actually outplay Talk ‘N Text. The Phone Pals won games two and three convincingly and were close to vanquishing the Aces for a third consecutive time when Cone engineered a fourth quarter comeback by springing traps on Talk ‘N Text’s ballhandlers after time-outs. The surprise maneuver led to two steals that Alaska converted for layups on the way to a comeback win. But the game five outlook was bleak. Before the series, Cone worried that the team wasn’t taking Talk ‘N Text seriously; to them, beating San Miguel was the real test and the Phone Pals were a formality. According to Cone’s script, losing game two should have jolted the team from its semifinal honeymoon, but it didn’t. Alaska lost game three in the same fashion, struggling to keep pace with Talk ‘N Text’s frenzied, up-tempo style, and the Aces were only able to salvage the fourth game through Cone’s trickery. By then the Aces’ blasé confidence had dissolved into panic—the team had let its guard down, and the Phone Pals turned out to be tougher than any opponent they’d faced all season.
The main source of Alaska’s dismay was Macmac Cardona. The gangly, six-foot-one shooting guard with a floppy, rust-dyed burr of hair didn’t cut an imposing figure on the court. Yet Cardona’s demeanor—a scowl affixed to his face with his lips curled in an eternal snarl—set the twenty-five-year-old scorer apart. Like a pit bull, he seemed hardwired to attack. While he was a competent three-point shooter, Cardona’s weapon of choice was the drive. Every time he received the ball, he lunged toward the basket and kept defenders perpetually on their heels. The entire league knew that Cardona always dribbled to his right; they also knew that when they forced him left, he would inevitably spin back to his right to shoot. It made no difference. His one-dimensional offense was unstoppable thanks to the one-handed floaters he managed to loft through the air and into the hoop from almost any spot on the floor. These shots earned him the nickname “Captain Hook,” but the handle was a misnomer. Cardona’s shot wasn’t a classic hook, a half hook, or even a baby hook. It was something unto itself, one of those singular inventions of Philippine street corners, where styles of play were learned ad hoc and “fundamentally sound” meant any shooting form that resulted in made baskets. Against Alaska, Cardona’s one-hander took on multiple forms: running teardrops in the lane, spinning jump hooks, even twenty-foot set shots. Most of them found their mark. Cone shuffled through his roster of perimeter defenders—Willie, Mike, Dale Singson, Eddie Laure, Aaron Aban—and not one of them consistently bothered Cardona.
In game two, desperate to stop a Cardona-sparked Talk ‘N Text run, Cone assigned his last-resort defender—Roe. Taller, stronger, and just as quick as Cardona, Roe should have been overkill, like squirrel-hunting with a bazooka. When Cardona caught the ball nineteen feet from the hoop on the right wing, he saw Roe and appeared to growl at the import. Cardona’s fight or flight response had only one setting. He drove right and Roe cut him off. He drove left and got nowhere. He dribbled in place for a second, openly contemplating his next move, then launched a one-handed jumper from a step inside the three-point line. All net. After the basket, Cone turned away from the court, smirked and shook his head. How was Roe supposed to stop a shot that didn’t exist?
I was a secret admirer of Cardona’s game. Even though he was the prime mover behind Alaska’s potential demise, he was a unique talent not unlike Willie, whose eccentric basketball style was a leitmotif evoking the essence of Philippine basketball. If Willie’s freestyle combinations of wheeling pivots and spin shots embodied creativity, Cardona, with his full-throttle hoopward blitzes, was the avatar of desire. I had pulled off only a handful of truly artistic moves as a player—my first spin in traffic,100 an alley-oop pass I threw on the run from half-court, a Willie-esque layup I converted over my shoulder while absorbing a violent push—and I remembered them more vividly than any single game a team of mine won. Players like Cardona and Willie, who conjured these transcendent moments every time they took the court, helped me connect with the Philippine game in an elemental way.
Although Cardona’s game was inspirational, his on-court persona was repellent. His exaggerated aggression had a put-on quality that left fans feeling put off. He had the heart of an attack dog and the presence of a Chihuahua. Except for the Talk ‘N Text faithful, Cardona was the PBA’s preeminent heel, the player people bought tickets to cheer against. Not even his remarkable path to the PBA could endear him to fans. When he was a toddler, his mother left to work as a domestic servant in Greece. As a child, he was shuttled between different extended family members’ homes and spent much of his time selling cigarettes and newspapers to mourners at wakes outside a Mandaluyong City church. His mother escaped Greece on a ship manned by Filipino seamen and sneaked into the United States, where she settled in the Los Angeles area, married a Filipino-American, and petitioned to have Cardona join her once she gained legal status. He attended Carson High School in California, the same school where Mike Cortez had been a star point guard. Cardona never made the varsity at Carson; instead, he played in public parks and worked at a Jack in the Box. He dropped out in eleventh grade and returned to Manila, where he earned a high school equivalency degree and joined the De La Salle University basketball team as a walk-on in 2001. Among his teammates at the basketball powerhouse was Mike Cortez, the player Cardona supposedly didn’t belong on the court with in Carson. Six years later Cardona was playing against Mike in the PBA Finals. It’s the kind of rags-to-riches story that would have Horatio Alger creaming in his knickers, but to his legion of haters, Cardona’s journey was no reason to cheer for such a foul-humored player.
Cone was less concerned with Cardona than with tempo. Alaska’s pre-finals swagger was predicated on forcing Talk ‘N Text to play deliberate basketball so the Aces could capitalize on their grinding defense and patient half-court execution. So far in the series, the opposite had occurred. The Phone Pals were making the Aces play their game, pressuring and pushing the ball with abandon, galloping up and down the court in search of
steals and layups. “The thing that gets me is that they just seem to be able to imprint their will on us,” Cone told me in practice. “When you’re used to playing up and down, you’re much more comfortable. We can’t get them to play our tempo, and it’s very uncomfortable for us. And, honestly? I don’t want to use him as an excuse, but that’s where we miss Jeffrey.” A few minutes later Jeff, sitting with his leg strapped into a clunky knee brace that extended from his calf to his upper thigh, picked up the ball he’d been dribbling and pounded it against the floor with two hands.
“I feel so out of shape already,” he moaned. He wasn’t talking to anyone in particular, but I was nearest to him, so I scooted down the bench to listen. It had been a week since his injury, and Jeff wouldn’t be able to run for several more weeks. “I’ve been waiting three years to get this team back to the finals,” he said. “I never thought I’d miss a championship because of an injury.” Every game, he’d sit in uniform on Alaska’s bench and watch, the brace poking out from below his shorts. Late at night he’d light up Cone’s cell phone with text messages describing how painful it was to see the team struggle, knowing that he was Alaska’s missing link. Jeff was the team’s strongest perimeter defender. No one was going to completely shut Cardona down, but Jeff would have contained him better than any other player on the Aces’ roster. The team’s composure came from Jeff, and Alaska’s inability to control tempo through the first four games stemmed from his absence.
As usual, the Alaska locker room reeked of rubbing alcohol before game five. This evening, however, an anticipatory air cut through the chemical funk. Boss Fred Uytengsu had just returned from his African safari and planned to address the team prior to tip-off. While the players stretched, Cone gathered with his coaching staff in the vestibule connecting Alaska’s lockers with the Araneta Coliseum’s main hallway.
“Maybe Fred is going to make an announcement,” Jojo Lastimosa said. He was floating the possibility that Uytengsu would tell the players about their championship bonus—rumored to be a vacation in California or Australia.
Cone dismissed the notion: “No chance. It’s way too early for that.” Cone knew that Uytengsu disapproved of using cash bonuses or team trips to motivate athletes.101
But the coaches had heard the players’ whispers that their Talk ‘N Text counterparts received game bonuses several times larger than the ones Alaska paid. Even when the Phone Pals lost, they supposedly took home more cash than the Aces. The staff suspected Talk ‘N Text was trying to drive a wedge between Alaska’s players and management. Each indulgent baksheesh sent a message: Your team doesn’t treat you as well. Why should you play so hard for them?
“It’s the perfect time for an announcement,” Jojo parried. “Game five. We need to win.”
When Uytengsu finally spoke, there was no mention of bonuses. He held up a book of Vince Lombardi quotes and read a selection of the NFL coach’s sayings:
“Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.”
“Winning is not a sometime thing. It’s an all the time thing.”
After the gridiron psalms, Uytengsu told the team he missed them while he was away. “It was killing me not to be able to support you guys,” he said, channeling his inner Tom Landry. “I woke up this morning excited as hell. I take a lot of pride in this organization, because we play by the rules; we do it by the book. We’re decent human beings. Guys, you are great men. Tonight, you are going to beat the little men.”
The team knelt for Jeff’s pregame prayer. He blessed them, and the Aces charged onto the court.
Perhaps Uytengsu should have taken Jojo’s suggestion to offer a more tangible reward. For whatever reason, the Aces came out flat in game five and played what they all agreed afterward was the team’s worst half of the season. Throughout the first two quarters they allowed Harvey Carey, the Phone Pals’ rugged hustle specialist, to beat them to offensive rebounds. Alaska’s guards watched Cardona drive around them, then chanced feeble jabs at the ball from behind. It was classic matador defense, scorned by coaches the world over, and not surprisingly, it had little effect on Cardona, who scored eight quick points. The Alaska crowd tried to pick up the slack by haranguing Cardona with chants of “Buwaya!”—Tagalog for “crocodile” and basketball slang for “ball hog,” which likened Cardona’s affinity for shooting to the reptile’s insatiable appetite—and waving long red balloons with the message GO BACK TO HIGH SCHOOL, MAC CARDONA printed in white letters.
Midway through the second quarter Roe had a look on his face that was half disbelief and half frustration with a dash of homicidal wrath. He was resting for the first time that night, and he didn’t like what he saw. He watched Dale Singson lunge into the lane to challenge three long-armed Talk ‘N Text defenders. Dale sidestepped and sent up a one-handed runner, but the defense had a bead on the shot and swatted it into the crowd. Roe’s eyes bulged. He alternated between mouthing silent obscenities to no one in particular and biting his lower lip. He balled his fists, rocked back and forth, and looked to the upper decks for some kind of assistance, but none would come. All the Alaska guards played with Dale’s death wish, chucking blind shots at the rim. Meanwhile, Sonny Thoss and Nic Belasco played like they had traded their high-tops for cement clogs. They stood motionless on offense, gazing at the guards’ reckless forays to the hoop and fumbling the few passes intended for them. The Phone Pals blitzed Alaska’s defense with a barrage of layups and three-pointers. Roe struggled to keep his team in the game. He scored with several short floaters in the paint, but too often Willie and Mike committed turnovers before they could pass to Roe.
Alaska’s debacle continued until the halftime buzzer. Just before the second quarter ended, Talk ‘N Text point guard Donbel Belano snagged a long rebound, slalomed from coast-to-coast through Alaska’s indifferent defense, stopped at the three-point line and rolled in a shot that sent Alaska into the locker room down nine points. Roe was livid. He felt his last best chance at an international championship slipping away. With his basketball career flashing before his eyes, he was ready to express his anger with more than a grimace.
Inside the locker room, he walked past his cubby and lay down on a massage table. His teammates filed in and sat around him. With all heads bowed in silence, Roe began talking about the game to blow off steam. The coaching staff followed the players in, and by the time they entered the room, Roe’s rage was free-flowing. With his hands folded behind his head and his legs crossed, he spoke: “You got in the game for eight minutes and you ain’t do shit! If I’m gonna be out there busting my ass, you best believe you better go out there and bust your ass. You ain’t gonna ride me to death. Fuck that! I’m talking to everybody collectively now, but in a minute I’m starting to get personal.”
Cone, equally furious with the team, thought Roe’s invectives were some kind of fiery pep talk. Not quite. The coach tried to transition from Roe’s tirade into his own halftime oratory. He walked to Roe, gently squeezed his thigh and said, “I got it now, Roe.”
Roe bolted upright, looked down into Cone’s face and shouted, “Fuck that! You ain’t got shit!” He accused the coaches of twiddling their thumbs on the sideline instead of challenging the players. “You guys just stand there collecting a check,” he screamed. “What are you guys here for? You don’t say nothing! When a guy comes out the game, tell him what he did wrong or tell him what he needs to do. Don’t just be sitting there. That’s what the goddamn fans are for.”
“Fuck you Roe!” Cone shouted, defending his staff, and from there the two faced off in an obscenity-riddled, two minute tête-à-tête as the Filipino players and assistant coaches, most of whom adhered to cultural values of saving face and eschewing confrontation, watched in horror. Here were Alaska’s two most vital cogs—the import and head coach—on the verge of attacking each other. Eventually, Cone backed down. The coaches stormed out of the locker room. Roe continued his rampage. To him, Cone’s retreat was yet another sign of cowardice. “Yeah, get the fuck o
ut of here,” he yelled as they left the room. “Run, you pussies.”
Outside, the coaches huddled to discuss their response; this wasn’t the halftime game plan Cone expected to concoct. Even though Cone agreed with Roe’s analysis of the game, the coach couldn’t allow a player to challenge him. “He painted me into a corner where I have to come out swinging,” he told the assistants. “If I don’t, I could lose whatever respect I have with the rest of the players.”
Finally, Cone burst into the room and heaved a six-by-three-foot dry-erase board in the general direction of John Ferriols, who deflected the airborne slab with a kick. The floor was now his, with even Roe watching to see what Cone would do next. He berated the team for their listless play and told Roe he was wrong to disrespect his coaches and teammates. Cone told Roe he was thinking of sitting him for the rest of the series, and the suggestion drew guffaws from the import. Cone stared at him. Fury was boiling behind his eyes. Then he told Roe he wasn’t going to sacrifice the title to make an example out of him and dismissed the team for the second half.
The Aces actually responded to the halftime eruption and seized a late fourth quarter lead. Up four with three minutes to play, Alaska submitted one of its finest defensive possessions of the season. They scrambled and harassed the Phone Pals all over the court, until the only shot Talk ‘N Text could manage was a rushed three-pointer. Yancy de Ocampo, the Phone Pals’ six-foot-eight center, forced a turnaround from about twenty-four feet with the shot clock down to its last five seconds. When I saw the shot go up, I held my breath. I thought the Aces had the game. Talk ‘N Text was panicking. One more Alaska bucket could break them, and to win this game would soothe many of the egos Roe had mauled at halftime. Then chance intervened. De Ocampo’s shot, an air ball, dropped into Anthony Washington’s hands like a perfect lob pass, and Washington was fouled while flipping in a reverse layup. Washington’s free throw cut Alaska’s lead to one. The Phone Pals seized the momentum and carried it to a three-point win, 107-104. Alaska was down three games to two and would need two straight wins to become champions.
Pacific Rims Page 38
