WE need only one win to advance to the next round of the Asian Games basketball competition.
Easier said than done, as usual. For, in every competition, nothing is really easy. The ball bounces unpredictably and, as the saying goes, no one can really say for sure which side it would favor.
As one sage tells us, too, “It ain’t over until it’s over.” Bluntly, only God knows what’s in store for all of us.
I wrote this hours before we faced Kazakhstan for our first foe in the basketball Asiad.
Kazakhstan is not exactly a regional power but tough enough to give us some headache.
I remember when I covered the 1998 Asian Games in Bangkok. Kazakhstan being our enemy for the basketball bronze, numerous were the tense moments we had to overcome before we were able to pull through.
It took Jojo Lastimosa’s last-minute heroics to ensure a bronze win over Kazakhstan that was worth a gold.
You end up with nothing in any Asiad basketball, it’d automatically draw a national mourning—basketball being our second religion next to Catholicism.
“It was the toughest win of my life internationally,” said PHL coach Tim Cone of that 1998 win over Kazakhstan.
After the interview held at the coliseum’s open-air parking lot, Cone said to me: “Oh, by the way, Al, thank you for this (pointing to his blue necktie). It brought me luck.”
I gave him the tie a day before the Kazakhstan game.
Jordan Clarkson couldn’t make it from California to Jakarta in time for the Kazakhstan game.
Clarkson, the former Los Angeles Laker who saw action in the last NBA Finals as a Cavalier in a painful 4-0 Cleveland loss to defending champion Golden State, became a last-minute reinforcement for Gilas Pilipinas following a dramatic turnaround by the NBA.
But Clarkson is not a cure-all for Gilas’ deficiencies in Jakarta.
As coach Yeng Guiao said: “He is certainly a big help, but Jordan coming in is not an instant solution.”
But while Clarkson would be a key cog, a basketball gold would still be a miracle should it happen—China having three seven-footers to begin with.
(Gilas Pilipinas, turns out, routed Kazakhstan 96-59. Gilas faces next China on Aug. 21.)