FOR Meralco, it is virtually survival today.
But for Barangay Ginebra, it is practically the championship game.
Today’s Game Three at the Smart Araneta Coliseum will define whether Meralco is still fit to continue a protracted war innate in a best-of-seven affair.
A loss would mean not just Meralco seeing itself on the brink but virtually out of it.
For how would you call a situation that sees you with one of your foot on the grave?
Morbidly scary, that’s what it would amount to once Meralco loses anew to Ginebra this evening.
It’d mean a third straight loss for the Bolts, putting them not just on the cliff but practically on the throes of death.
From the precipice, a.k.a. 0-3 hole, how could one perform so solidly when one miscue after another could each mean a tightening of the noose?
Miracles do happen, but another miracle happening so soon is as improbable and as impossible as in the world seeing another Trump victory in the next American presidential elections.
Thus, it will take another lifetime, if not two, three, lifetimes, before San Miguel Beer’s rally from 0-3 to a 4-3 triumph a while back over Alaska could be replicated again.
With the way Meralco got manhandled by Ginebra in the first two games of the best-of-seven Finals for the PBA Governors’ Cup crown, serious doubts flood the mind as to how a Bolts bounceback could materialize tonight.
Thus, from flame to flicker is what seems to have become of Meralco’s revenge. The fight for honor has practically fizzled out for the Bolts, who lost to the Gin Kings in six games last year on a buzzer-beating three by import Justin Brownlee.
And with Brownlee back and again asserting his might rather unstoppably, Ginebra appears headed to retaining its crown.
LA Tenorio’s all-around performance has, likewise, put Meralco in deeper trouble as exemplified in his heroic efforts in authoring Game Two’s come-from-behind 86-76 Ginebra victory.
Crazy you might call it, but Tenorio sparked an unbelievable 19-1 Ginebra wind-up last Sunday, Meralco pathetically producing its solitary point in the last 4:47 of the game that saw Ginebra erase a 75-67 deficit coming home.
Mercifully, Meralco is in a blackout zone right now. If it can’t light a candle tonight, total darkness looms.
THAT’S IT Since returning home from our coverage of the World Basketball Club Championship in Girona, Spain, in 1985 (San Miguel Beer-Northern Cement was the Philippines’s representative then), Beth Celis addressed me Senyor. In return, I called her Senyorita. You know, we wanted to keep our Spanish escapade alive and kicking. She’d call in the morning and say, “Ola, buenas dias, Senyor!” There would be no more of that. On Thursday, Beth, 73, had passed on, leaving a column void too huge to fill. She broke barriers, becoming the first female to really be accorded the honorable label by the male-dominated sportwriting world as “one of the boys.” Her Inquirer column, “In Huddle,” was dignified gossip only she could whip, and was the staple of both stars and upstarts in basketball. You will be missed, Senyorita. Adios! Vaya con Dios. Enjoy your vacation.