–MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.net
In defending the crucial misses of Francis Lopez during the crucial moments of Game 2, University of the Philippines (UP) coach Goldwin Monteverde said basketball had always been a game about making shots.
“Basketball is like that. [Shots are] either missed or made,” Monteverde said.
Fittingly, the last remaining statistic that has held true, as far as being a key marker for the outcomes of games between UP and defending champion La Salle is concerned, is the one that deals with makes and misses.
In each showdown between the two UAAP Season 87 men’s basketball finalists dating back to the elimination round, the team that shot better from the field has always won.
That trend spilled over to Game 2, which La Salle took dramatically, 76-75, last Wednesday. The Green Archers shot 46.2 percent from the field against the Maroons, who managed just 36.8-percent shooting.
Simpler math
Going into Game 3, however, Monteverde’s math is quite simpler.
“It takes two games to win a championship,” he said.
And so it boils down to Sunday, where La Salle gets one more chance to defend its crown and UP earns another shot at taking it.
“We’ll do our best. We’ll be ready after whatever happened [in Wednesday’s] game; we’ll be ready for [La Salle in Game 3],” Monteverde added.
La Salle won both elimination round games and shot an average of 40.3 percent from the field in both victories, compared to UP’s 33.3. In Game 1 of the Finals, UP, which took the series-opener, hit 39.4 percent of its shots while La Salle made just 34.7 percent, including a paltry 21.1 percent by its starters.
The two teams will certainly look to have more makes than misses on Sunday when they tip off at 5:30 p.m. at Smart Araneta Coliseum.
In Game 2, Kevin Quiambao’s made three-pointers keyed the Archers’ victory, which saw misses from the stripe by Lopez, who flubbed four freebies in the stretch, and a bricked three-pointer at the buzzer by Gerry Abadiano that could have won it all for the Maroons.
“Those missed free throws or shots, it’s all part of the game,” the soft-spoken Monteverde said. “If it boils down to the last [play], we will still go to him (Lopez). Our trust in him is huge. As I said, each member of the team will try their best to make shots or execute. But then I assure them that our trust will always be there.”
Sense of gloom
And while there was a sense of gloom that pervaded in the UP side of the championship series, JD Cagulangan—whose memorable stepback three-pointer ended the school’s 33-year wait for a UAAP men’s basketball title—wanted to make on thing clear.
“It’s not yet over, there is still Game 3. I hope we win that, and of course we’ll work for it,” the graduating guard said. “That fight won’t be easy.”
UP hasn’t won the crown since that Cagulangan-led championship in Season 84, and the Cebuano spitfire will again play a huge part in UP’s trek back to the top. And UP will go into the Game 3 intact after the league decided it would not suspend Reyland Torres, who has the gargantuan task of guarding Quiambao, over the two unsportsmanlike fouls that had him ejected in the payoff frame of Game 2.
“It’s simple, we’ll just move on from that loss. We won’t forget about what happened in that game but we’ll study it. We’re on to the next game,” Cagulangan said ahead of his final game in the Maroons uniform. “Hopefully, we get the win in Game 3 and hopefully, it ends [our] way.” INQ