By Jerome Lagunzad
Game Tomorrow
(Mall of Asia Arena)
4 p.m. – La Salle vs Ateneo
(Game 1, best-of-three finals)
Right after taking Far Eastern University by its horn in their knockout Final Four duel, Ateneo coach Tab Baldwin wasted no little time in shifting his sights on their familiar rivals eager to release their sharpened, deadly arrows from different directions.
“La Salle. What else would I be thinking about? We have to move on,” said the American-Kiwi coach, hardly giving himself and the Blue Eagles any time to celebrate their hard-earned 88-84 victory over the Tamaraws last Wednesday night.
Baldwin, 59, has all reasons to put any celebration on hold since Ateneo has less than 72 hours to plot its gameplan ahead of the opener of a best-of-three titular showdown with defending champion La Salle in a rematch of last year’s finals.
“I think the coaching staff has to set the tone and we gotta come down from the cloud pretty quick. Get our focus on the next game because we didn’t play this season just to win in the semis. We played this season to go as far as this team is capable of going,” he stressed.
This will be the sixth time in nearly three decades that the “Blue versus Green” rivalry will hog the finals’ limelight, with Ateneo winning it back in 1988, 2002 and 2008 and La Salle prevailing back in 2001 and also last year.
After barely surviving a balanced Tamaraws crew which gave them all they could handle for the second straight semifinals battle, the Blue Eagles should quicken up their recovery since they are going up against the rejuvenated Green Archers who are starting to flash their unstoppable form of old after an up-and-down start.
“They’re a good team. There’s a reason why they’re in the Finals, why they’re waiting in the Finals, they’re the defending champs,” said long-time Ateneo assistant coach Sandy Arespacochaga of La Salle, which made quick work of No. 3 Adamson, 82-75, in their own semis pairing over the weekend.
“We have no illusion that it’s gonna be an easy game for us. We have to dig deep and really play in spite of this game that we’re tired and it went into overtime. Fatigue’s not a factor right now. We’re gonna find a way to overcome that. We can’t enjoy this game too much because we have to focus on the next game.”
They really need to since the Blue Eagles have apparently suffered a considerable drop-off in terms of their collective confidence and sharpness after they lost two of their last three matches in the last two weeks, including a 79-76 loss to the Archers.
