Mendoza: Powerade out if Tiger David couldn’t growl

Sunday, January 22, 2012

I CANNOT doubt Talk ‘N Text’s ability to make it 2-0 over Powerade when they battle again on Monday, this time at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Cubao, Quezon City.

In fact, I find it hard to find a reason why TNT won’t proceed to win the best-of-7 title series.

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From their emphatic 116-110 Game 1 victory in Digos, Davao del Sur, on Friday, it is all too clear the Tropang Texters are bent on retaining their All-Filipino crown, aptly rechristened PBA Philippine Cup.

I say aptly because with the sheer number of Fil-Ams present today in the PBA, Asia’s first professional basketball league, separating the homegrown Pinoy from the English-speaking tribe assembled in the US has now almost become like searching for needles amid a sea of humanity.

The invading Fil-Ams have multiplied that much over the years that it’s now as common as brushing one’s teeth to see a Fil-Am consistently running away with best player of the game honors.

Don’t even go far. TNT’s spitfire Jimmy Alapag, the reigning league MVP, is Fil-Am. He speaks English with a twang--but, of course--each time he gets interviewed when chosen as best player of the game.

But to go back to the business at hand —the TNT-Powerade crown showdown.

Although, as I said, it is doubtful that TNT wouldn’t prevail in the title war, the Texters’ go-ahead victory on Friday was purely the result of Gary David getting caged.

Averaging almost 30 points a game in the last nine games of Powerade, David could only produce 19 points on Friday.

That’s a slump comparable to the almost unacceptable knockout slump of Manny Pacquiao, whose last four fights in 2010 and 2011 could only end in rather limp triumphs by virtue of the PacMan’s four victories on mere points.

One of them—that majority decision win over Juan Manuel Marquez last November—even drew criticisms centering on the belief that Pacquiao had lost that one.

Powerade on Monday must reignite David’s hot hands so that the return from injury of JV Casio, the 2011 No. 1 Draft pick, will not go to waste.

Still, should TNT lose Game 2, we only have the gods of the game to blame.

(alsol47@yahoo.com)