AS surely as Stephen Curry regained his shooting touch, Mayor Sandy Javier felt that the National Basketball Association (NBA) Finals would end in six games. Definitely.
Sandy said it with the certainty of someone who adores the Warriors, and someone who has such an incredible feel for business that he parlayed the Andok’s grilled chicken into an extraordinary business enterprise.
This series wasn’t about LeBron James anymore. He had been epic, but somehow, the physics of the Finals didn’t give him enough lift and burn to reach the stars. He didn’t promise Cleveland a championship this year. But he proclaimed himself the best player in the world.
Indeed he is. But he was not in Game Five in the NBA Finals, when Andre Igoudala made him sweat out for every point like a seasonal worker hustling for pay, and he would not be in Game Six if Igoudala would cast the same spell again.
Sure, LeBron had been incandescent, mesmerizing, taking the injured and burnt-out Cavaliers on his back, with the result that a fascination about this series was starting to lure back TV viewers. (Game Six would eventually lure more than 23 million, the most watched NBA Finals game in more than 20 years.) LeBron and J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert, Tristan Thompson, Timofey Mozgov, and yes, Matthew Dellavedova—were good enough to win, but only for two games.
This was a season—and an improbable title run—that belonged, right from opening day, to the unflappable, unsinkable Warriors.
It was about Curry who turned three-point shooting into a symphony. Look at him dribble, step back and launch a high-arching shot, and it was all a chorus of classy, inimitable artful moves. This was a series, too, about the reborn Igoudala, about Draymond Green, about Harrison Barnes, about Shaun Livingston, and yes, about Klay Thompson, too.
For us, Game Six happened not in a glitzy bar or café but—of all places—at Terminal 2 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. Like Victor Navorski (played by Tom Hanks) in the movie Terminal, we were held up at the predeparture lounge.
Huddled in a corner, we were yelling at the top of our voices, rejoicing at every bit of action of the live telecast from LeBron’s home court. Our hearts sank when Cleveland exploded with an 8-2 run and Tristan dunked an offensive rebound to pull the Cavaliers closer, 45-43, at halftime.
But that was before Curry turned symphonic, before he flashed the shooting that made him the season’s Most Valuable Player (MVP). He buried LeBron and his Cavaliers with a flurry of threes, and, incredibly, the Warriors rocketed to an 89-75 lead.
“No more Game Six, Boss Sandy,” exclaimed Mayor Jess Burahan, flashing a wide grin.
The pleasant and cool secretary-general of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP), handsome as a matinee idol, is himself an avid sports buff. When not in his smart, Penguin long sleeves, he can be seen wielding a mean tennis racket, mimicking his idols Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer. With a slew of aces, powerful ground strokes and pinpoint drop shots, he rules over a gang of pretenders, habitues of the Philippine Columbian Association indoor courts in Paco, Manila
Sandy Javier is not only a highly successful businessman, but also a self-respected sportsman, owner of champion thoroughbreds and then the multititled San Juan Knights. But these past two terms, starting in 2010, he has been preoccupied as mayor of Javier town in Leyte. A man of impeccable character, he became the natural president of the LMP, a post he got unopposed.
We were at the airport to fly to Vigan City, site of the LMP’s first of a series of conferences among local officials in Luzon next month.
The small crowd, which included now former Agriculture Undersecretary Cesar Drilon, was set to relish an impending Golden State triumph when boarding for PR 2196 was announced. Curry and Finals MVP Iguodala fired a three-pointer each to spark a 17-9 run for a 92-77 lead, six minutes left.
Sandy turned to me and asked in jest, “Is the flight not delayed?”
“No, Boss. We are the last passengers requested to board.”
He picked up his hand-carry bag and two smartphones and left the game. We made our way to the boarding gate. Unlike Navorski, a man suddenly without a country (it was dissolved by war while he was traveling), his passport voided so that he made the JFK Airport in New York City his temporary home.
Our last glance told us the score: 101-97, 33 seconds to go, Warriors on top.
Could James and JR Smith sustain that Cavs’ homestretch rally? They pulled the Cavs back with Smith burying three three-pointers and James adding a lay-up.
We took off for the heritage city of Vigan chased by this question. Forty-five minutes later, the “fasten-seat-belt” sign was switched. As the plane circled the placid Paoay Lake, making its final approach to the Laoag International Airport, Sandy Javier flashed a thumbs up.
“We won!” he smiled in controlled jubilation.
Rico Loriaga’s text message, sent while we were still above the clouds, had come through in Sandy’s smartphone.
Loriaga is a self-styled sports analyst who thinks basketball is no mystery, no magic. If you shoot, you score; if you jump higher, you get the ball; if you dribble better, you could fake and take a good shot.
But these Warriors, he averred, were simply marvelous and magical. “Free throws of Curry and Iguodala, Sir!” Rico barked on the other line, starstruck at the greatness of the historic victory the MVP had steered with 25 points.
You see, Mayor Sandy is a dyed-in-the-wool Golden State fan. He wanted Rico to provide a dramatic story of the dying seconds, the energy, the spirit, the passion, the drive.
These Warriors, Rico said, pulled off the trick with a lot of courage. They ended their 40-year title drought (their last was in 1975 won by Rick Barry, et al.), and the tumult of the celebration reached the heavens.
It has always been that way ever since, through championship, through the season, through those magical moments.The NBA has lured fans around the world, many stranded in bars, plazas, or—like us—in airports to trail the sweet-shooting Curry, or the power-playing James. Take your pick.
Rico, now a certified bookmaker whose skills are so precise expressed in the language of numbers in a scratch sheet, is smiling again: “Another NBA season will soon begin.”