The song goes a little like this: “If there’s something strange…in your neighborhood…who ya gonna call?”
Well, if Rain or Shine coach Yeng Guiao truly feels something bizarre is going on in the PBA Commissioner’s Cup Finals, then maybe now’s the time to pick up the phone and give Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd a ring.
That’s right, the Ghostbusters!
The way Guiao sounded after a Game 6 victory over Talk ‘N Text Sunday narrowly allowed the Elasto Painters to force a winner-take-all Game 7 tomorrow, the championship series may indeed be in dire need of some serious ‘bustin.”
“What do you have to do to get a flagrant foul call (against TNT import Johnson)?” a livid Guiao asked during the post-game interview after seeing Johnson smother a driving Paul Lee in the face late in the game and then get off with an ordinary foul.
Yup, the same Johnson who rearranged Lee’s dental structure in Game 2.
“If there’s something weird…and it don’t look good…who ya gonna call?”
A defensive player tries to swipe the ball from behind a dribbler and hits the elbow instead, that’s a foul. A fraction of an inch of movement either to the left or the right prior to contact and a player looking to draw a charge gets called for a blocking foul instead. Two hands on the back of an offensive player posting up, and the whistle blows.
No way, Guiao believes, what Johnson did fall in the same category.
“He was not going for the ball because Paul was about two arms length away; he went after Paul’s face,” Guiao fumed. “They reviewed the incident and deemed it just an ordinary foul? What’s going on? Anong kalokohan ‘tong nangyayari?”
“If you’re seeing things…running through your head…who can ya call?”
“Noong una niyang siniko si Paul (in the jaw), me makakapag-sabi ba dito sa kwarto na ‘to na di sadya yon?” Guiao said in the hushed press room. “At saka bakit niya hinabol si Chris (Tiu)? Di ba fighting stance na yon? So anong tawag? Again, what do we have to do to get a flagrant foul called against this import? The guy is mentally unstable and a menace.”
“If you’ve had a dose of a…freaky ghost, baby…ya better call…”
As of now, there is no indication the PBA will review the disputed play which one ranking league official said should have merited an F1 call.
And there perhaps lies the rub.
Had a flagrant foul been called on Johnson instead of an ordinary one, he would have sat out practically the entire three and a half minutes remaining with the game on the line. That could’ve been on the minds of the refs when they went for the lighter penalty.
Of course, they had no idea Johnson was on his way to going 0-for-5 in the fourth quarter and finishing with a dismal six points the whole evening.
Talk about a wasted reprieve.
Even if warranted on review, upgrading the call to an F1 before Game 7 may be unlikely since doing so could entail meting out a three-minute penalty on Johnson which would then be served, if the PBA decides, in the first quarter of Wednesday’s championship game – an unprecedented turn of events in the league’s 40-year history.
So again, to paraphrase Yeng Guiao, who can Rain or Shine call?
At this point, nobody but themselves, it seems. Unless they wish to call you know who.
Not such a bad thing perhaps. After all, as Ray Parker swore: “Bustin’ makes me feel good!”