The Final Score: Rain or Shine versus Powerade; all fun and gun

Sometimes, a series brings us back to basketball that's less scientific, more frenetic. I know. It’s unfair to Rain or Shine and Powerade coaches who work tirelessly to prepare meticulous battle plans. But science relents when a series progresses at PlayStation speed. In fun and gun basketball, meticulous plans work wondrously by not looking like meticulous plans at all.

Defensive schemes are in effect. Offensive patterns exist. It’s still a basketball game played at the highest level. It’s still a series with a championship berth on the line. However, Rain or Shine and Powerade follow different rules of engagement. Ignore the shot-clock. Ditch high-percentage shots. Shoot to thrill.  First team to score 200 points wins the game. 

But there are time-honored commandments: keep scores low, don’t rush, utilize legitimate centers, a three-point shot is not a lay-up, it’s impossible to sweep an opponent with perpetual home-court advantage, it’s improbable for an eighth seed to vanquish title favorites. Rain or Shine and Powerade not only break the rules, they craft new ones as they go along. 

 

Rain or Shine’s Jeff Chan scores 27 in Game 1. He is scoreless in Game 2. Powerade’s Marcio Lassiter scores 2 points in Game 1. He rebounds with 32 in Game 2. Score big tonight. Score nothing two nights later. As a rookie, Rain or Shine’s Paul Lee is not supposed to average 24 points and seven assists in the semifinals. He’s not supposed to (gasp) shoot 70 percent from three-point range. Powerade’s Gary David was not an All-Star last year. His average of 31 points per game in the semifinals is, therefore, a farce. 

 

There are new teams on top. They peddle new rules on the court.

 

In the Rain or Shine-Powerade series, now two games old, I’ve grown numb to 30-point quarters, reckless shot-clock management, frontlines with no traditional centers and pull-up three-point shots on three-against-one situations. It’s maddening, like a pulsating car chase in a Michael Bay movie. Excellence, therefore, emerges, not by execution, but through exhilaration.

 

In at least three more games, we will shake our heads. We will wonder how much caffeine hyperactive Sean Anthony is on. We will watch Beau Belga score fast-break lay-ups in Beau-motion. Two teams will take us back to 80’s-style basketball. Two teams will restructure the PBA landscape. They will try to score a combined 400 points in one of the games. And their coaches will allow it to happen. 

 

Defense still wins championships. Defense will still help either Rain or Shine or Powerade to enter the Finals. But we won’t notice. I might even overlook it on purpose. Because Paul Lee will be too fun to watch. Because Gary David will prove that playoff scoring #ismorefuninthePHILIPPINES. 

 

When two teams, now tied at 1-1, stubbornly play with video-game-caliber resolve, I suggest we don’t over-analyze. It’s probably better to just watch them go for high-scores. It’s probably best to just watch new PBA title-contenders blast conventional hard-court rules into oblivion. 121 points is just the beginning. — GMA News