PBA Finals: Texters brace for Tigers’ wrath

INQUIRER PHOTO/ August dela Cruz

MANILA, Philippines—Talk ‘N Text coach Chot Reyes knows, even without saying so, what’s in store for his Tropang Texters if they weather the coming storm.

“We must prepare for Powerade’s mightiest fightback,” Reyes said as his wards try to hold off the Tigers for the third straight game tonight and, for all practical purposes, put the PBA Philippine Cup championship away.

Game 3 is slated at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Cubao, and the Texters are again the solid picks to prevail and move closer to becoming this conference’s first repeat champion in 27 years.

No team in the PBA has ever come back from a 0-3 deficit to win a best-of-seven series.

“We’ve seen this so many times,” Reyes said of his 2-0 lead, which he also toted in 2003 while, ironically, still coaching Coca-Cola, now Powerade, in this same tournament. Talk ‘N Text won the next four games to win the title.

“We still need to get two more (victories) and all we’ve done (with the Game 2 win) is take another step toward our objective,” he said. “We can’t relax and must keep our foot on the pedal against what I think would be Powerade’s mightiest fightback.”

A 3-0 lead seems insurmountable but Reyes still refuses to buy that.

“We don’t want to think about anything else but the next 48 minutes,” he said. “We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves.”

Powerade showed it truly deserves to be in this title series as they took the Texters to the distance in Game 2. In the final minute, with the game hanging in the balance, Jimmy Alapag hit a triple that finally broke the back of the Tigers.

And coach Bo Perasol is sure that they still have some fight left in them, vowing to go all out and die fighting.

“It really does not matter whether we are 0-2 or 0-3,” Perasol said. “As long as we have that chance, we will keep fighting. I believe we have a special reason why we are here.”

Gary David played his heart out and was the scoring demon again for the Tigers Wednesday night, shooting 30 points while getting excellent help from a walking-wounded No. 1 pick JV Casio and fellow rookie Marcio Lassiter.

Casio’s presence almost netted Powerade its first win in the series, but the sheer advantage of the Texters in manpower proved too much to handle for the hard-fighting Tigers.

The Talk ‘N Text frontline mangled its Powerade counterparts in the battle off the boards even after a brilliant game from Doug Kramer, the Tigers’ undersized but big-hearted center.

And Casio showed signs that he was favoring his right hamstring, the same injury that kept him out of Game 1 action which resulted in an easy 116-100 Talk ‘N Text victory in Digos, Davao del Sur.