Furious Fisher

In this all-important Game 3, it was veteran guard Derek Fisher who emerged as the star of stars, outshining four Hall of Famers, one upstart superstar, and a dominant All-star with a scintillating fourth quarter that keyed the Lakers' 91-84 victory over the Celtics

Derek Fisher is supposed to be the Lakers’ weakest link in the NBA Finals. He’ll either get eviscerated by Rajon Rondo, the Celtics’ precocious point guard who has been all-world these playoffs, or he’ll flameout chasing six-foot-five shooting guard Ray Allen.

Apparently, old man Fish didn’t get that memo.

Through three games in the NBA Finals, Fisher has been anything but a weak link. Through three games, the savvy veteran has been a rock for these Lakers, giving them his usual dose of quiet leadership, hard-nosed defense, and steady play. And on Game 3, he staked the Lakers ever so closer to another championship with a memorable fourth quarter that was as clutch as it was gutsy.

With the game up for grabs in the fourth and the Celtics threatening to take control of the game, of the series, Fisher turned to Kobe Lite, hitting jumper after jumper after jumper, each a fireball that quelled every Boston uprising. And with barely a minute left in the game and the Lakers up four, the wily lefty staked the final dagger to the heart of Boston with a three-point play fresh out of the Rajon Rondo playbook: a 94-foot dash to the paint and a fearless finish at the rim.

Fisher’s clutch fourth quarter was mildly surprising but it wasn’t totally unexpected either. The 35-year-old guard has done this before. In fact, he has done this so many times before that it boggles the mind to see teams, either by design or by mistake, forget about Fisher. And apparently, the Celtics themselves—and a lot of other very good teams actually—never got the “Don’t leave Derek Fisher open in the fourth quarter” memo.

For Game 4, the Celtics might have to consider the following if the game is tight in the fourth quarter:

• Fisher nailed three fourth quarter jumpers in the Lakers’ series-clinching win in Game 6 at Phoenix.
• He hit a big three and a jumper in LA’s Game 3 win at Utah.
• He made several crucial jumpers in the Lakers’ Game 2 win over the Orlando Magic in last year’s Finals.
• He hit the triple that sent Game 4 of last year’s Finals to overtime. In the extra period, he made a huge straightaway triple that gave the Lakers the lead, which they never relinquished.
• Playing for the Utah Jazz in the Western Conference semifinals in 2006, Fisher nailed a clock-winding-down triple that sealed the Jazz’s Game 2 overtime win over the Golden State Warriors. He did that fresh from the airport and seeing action for the first time.
• Fisher’s 0.4 in San Antonio in 2004.

In a word, Derek Fisher is clutch, and he has proven time and again throughout his career that he can take and make the biggest of shots in the grandest of stages. The Celtics ought to know that. Rajon Rondo, all-world and all, will have to respect that. Otherwise, these Celtics will find themselves in a heap of trouble. And this series just might not return to Los Angeles.

Ray Allen: Shooting Star

Point guard extraordinaire Rajon Rondo deserves a lot of credit for keying the Celtics' improbable playoff run, but his backcourt mate, veteran Ray Allen, deserves just as much love.

On Game 2, Walter Ray Allen reminded everyone, with one sweet jumper after another, that even at the ripe old age of 34, Jesus Shuttlesworth can still ball.

Allen scored a game-high 32 points in Game 2, including 27 in a scorching first half, which saw the many-time all-star single-handedly keep the Boston Celtics in the lead with one timely triple after another. In all, the 34-year-old gunslinger nailed a Finals record eight triples, seven of which came in that all-important first half.

And although it was young Rajon Rondo who sealed the win with his fearless fourth quarter, it will be a grave injustice to understate or overlook Allen’s impact on the game. The C’s got next to nothing from Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce and very little from Rondo in the first half, and without Allen’s spectacular shooting show, Game 2 would’ve quickly gotten out of hand for these Celtics. Instead, the veteran guard shot the C’s into the game and back into the series, drilling one dagger triple after another in the game’s first 24 minutes, including three in a two-minute stretch in the second quarter that gave Boston a 42-28 lead.

In short, Ray Allen gave the Celtics a fighting chance. He gave his team a chance to figure out a way to win, and in the end, these Celtics did find a way. KG dished out timely dimes. Pierce found a way to get a few buckets. Glen Davis muscled in a couple of baskets inside. Nate Robinson provided quality minutes at the start of the fourth. Most of all, Rondo took over, making big plays on both ends down the stretch. None of these efforts, though, would have mattered if not for Allen’s Jordanesque first half.

Throughout these playoffs, Allen has been largely overshadowed, his impact grossly understated. Very few, it seems, talk about Allen’s contributions to these Celtics: that unflappable calm, that quiet leadership, that quintessential professionalism, that otherworldly attention to detail, and of course, that super-sweet stroke. Without Allen, these Celtics will not be in the Finals. More important, the core of these Celtics—Garnett, Pierce, Rondo, Perkins, Davis—will still be ringless. That’s how valuable Allen is to Boston, and yet his contributions are often overlooked, if not totally unnoticed, by many.

Now, though, after shooting the lights out of Staples Center, it will be very difficult to overlook Ray Allen. The Lakers, for one, will surely pay close attention. Everyone else is advised to take notice too.

A Settling of Scores: Kobe Looking for Retribution

Kobe wants a fifth ring, and standing in his way are the bullies from Boston. If all goes according to script, Kobe will get his ring, and for good measure, exact a measure of revenge against the Celtics.

It took Kobe Bryant all of three minutes and three hand-in-the-face dagger jumpers to once again reaffirm his status as the game’s premier closer, and in those three scintillating minutes, Bryant delivered a third consecutive Western Conference championship to his Lakers, sealed a date with the Boston Celtics, and served notice to everyone that he so badly wants a fifth ring.

Yes, No. 24 wants another ring, but there’s one more thing Kobe wants that he hasn’t and probably will not admit publicly: revenge.

Publicly, Kobe has said all the right things. He claims he just wants to win another championship, and that it just so happens that the Boston Celtics are in his way. He insists he’s not out for vengeance, that he’s not seeking revenge for the utter humiliation these Celtics inflicted on his Lakers two years ago on this very same stage.

Those who believe this have little to no knowledge of what makes Kobe the game’s best player. Yes, he has otherworldly talent, jaw-dropping skills, and awe-inspiring mental toughness, but what makes Kobe the alpha male of alpha males is his competitiveness. He is the ultimate competitor, forever driven by a constant, insatiable desire to win, to excel, to be great. Competitors like Kobe don’t take losing very well, and they sure don’t take humiliating losses very well either.

These Celtics beat and embarrassed Kobe and his Lakers in 2008. There was the dominant Game 2 at the Garden. Then there was The Comeback in Game 4 at Staples. And of course, there was the title-clinching Game 6 back at the Garden, a game that the Celtics so thoroughly dominated that Kobe and his Lakers looked like bumbling amateurs.

Games 4 and 6, in particular, scarred Kobe. Those two games, whether No. 24 will admit it publicly or not, opened deep, painful wounds. Kobe was near helpless as the Lakers choked away a 24-point lead in Game 4, and he was hapless and helpless in Game 6 as the Celtics pounded the Lakers to submission and into oblivion. Near the end of Game 6, Kobe sat on the Lakers bench for what seemed like eternity. He was dejected and frustrated, and adding insult to injury, he had to endure all the mocking and jeering, all the “Beat L.A!” and “Kobe Sucks!” chants. He watched Gino dance blissfully on the Jumbotron, then saw Tony Allen slam home a showboat alley-oop. He watched pure joy and mayhem unfold as confetti rained down on the Garden parquet.

That series haunted Kobe in the summer of 2008 and throughout the 2008–2009 season. It loomed over him like a dark cloud, a painful reminder that he really isn’t on the same gravita as Michael Jordan. Yet it fuelled Kobe. It drove him to the point that every game took on life-or-death proportions. The end result was a more driven, more determined Kobe, a Kobe that wanted to win more than anyone else on the league. He was seeking redemption, and by the end of last season, he got it by winning his fourth championship at the expense of the Orlando Magic.

Still, the vestiges of the epic 2008 meltdown still haunt Kobe today. This is a man who doesn’t exactly take losing well, and to a man, you can bet that Kobe took that ’08 loss to heart. And no, he sure as hell did not take it very well. That’s not Kobe being juvenile, self-indulgent, or bitter; that’s just Kobe being the ultimate competitor that he is.

Sure, he won his fourth ring last season, but it wasn’t against the Celtics, the team that tormented them just a season earlier. Kobe and his Lakers beat a young upstart Orlando Magic team, not those bullies from Boston. Privately, Kobe wanted the Celtics last season so he could find retribution from what happened in ’08.

Now, Kobe has his wish. He’ll get a shot at a fifth ring beginning Friday, and along with it, another shot at these Celtics. For Kobe, this series will be personal. It will be a settling of scores, a long-sought-after shot at revenge and a chance to exorcise the demons of ’08. This is bad news for these Celtics. A driven, determined Kobe Bryant is bad enough, but a Kobe Bryant out for blood is downright scary.

Publicly, Kobe will insist that all he cares about now is winning his fifth ring. Words, though, can be utterly meaningless, so don’t buy that. Kobe Bryant is as competitive as they come, and he’s absolutely dying to destroy these Boston Celtics.

Yes, he wants a ring, but he also wants retribution. And he wants it real bad.

Shattered Dreams

Z "The Dream" Gorres was about to get another title shot, then one punch changed his life forever.

Last Sunday, in ABS-CBN's "Hangad na Paghihiganti," Zeta Celestino Oliveros Gorres (popularly known as ZC Gorres), once again made his way to the ring, only this time, he walked slowly, haltingly, his right arm carefully held by his lovely, loving wife Datches. As he stepped onto the mat to the rousing, poignant applause of the crowd, tears rolled down his cheeks. He was shaking and still shaken, no doubt tortured by his heartbreaking past and his now uncertain future.

Six months ago, Gorres was poised for a breakthrough win in U.S. soil. He was delivering a command performance against hard-hitting Colombian Luis Melendez. It was a masterful yet sublime boxing clinic when out of nowhere, he got caught flush with a crunching left hook. Gorres went down, dazed, disoriented, and down for the count. Someway, somehow, he managed to will himself up. He held on to dear life, finished the fight, acknowledged his victory, and paraded the Philippine flag around the ring—all on rubbery legs.

After that, everything began to fall apart for the affable, unassuming pride of Agusan del Norte. He collapsed on his way out of the ring and was rushed to the nearby University Medical Center, where he underwent emergency surgery to clear up the blood clot in his brain. Gorres survived, yet a part of him died that night. His dreams, his aspirations, his career all came crumbling down with that one vicious punch.

Now Gorres is a shell of his former self. Only 28, Gorres looks beaten and battered, hurt and hurting. Always in control inside the ring, this once dynamic young man now has little to no control over almost everything. Eating can be laborious, walking even more. He tries to speak, but oftentimes he can only mumble the words that are dying to come out. He looks almost helpless, perhaps even hopeless. The tears that rolled down Gorres's cheeks said it all. They were tears of absolute pain, tears of undeniable sorrow.

Unfortunately, Z Gorres’s tragic fate is a sad, forgotten story now, and yet his is a story—sad and as tragic as it is—that reveals a reprehensible, understated reality: most Filipinos are blinded by the otherworldly excellence of Manny Pacquiao and oblivious to the often heartrending struggles most Filipino boxers endure. What we fail to remember, wittingly or not, is that beyond the supernova that is Emmanuel Dapidran Pacquiao is a slew of lesser-lights like Gorres, some dreaming of superstardom, of championships, of admiration; many, simply carving a perilous path out of poverty.

Gorres’s case isn’t an isolated one. Two years ago, lightweight prospect Czar Amonsot suffered the same fate—though relatively minor compared to Gorres’s—after going toe-to-toe with Australian slugger Michael Katsidis for 10 brutal, back-and-forth rounds. Another boxer, young Lito Sisnorio wasn’t so lucky. In only his 11th professional fight, he was pitted against former world champion Chatchai Sasakul in a colossal mismatch, and predictably, he got the beatdown of his life. His brain bled and he died just days after the fight.

Admittedly, the risks of prizefighting is as great as its lucrative rewards. Unfortunately, Gorres, Amonsot, and Sisnorio got the wrong end of this risk-reward conundrum. We know of Gorres, Amonsot, and Sisnorio, but to say that they are the only ones wo have fallen prey to the inherent dangers of the sport would be naive. In fact, a case can even be made that more than a fair share of Pinoy pugilists—many of whom have turned to boxing as a means of livelihood—have gotten the wrong end of this risk-reward conundrum.

The problem, however, is not simply about the risks endemic to the sport. The bigger problem is actually the collective apathy—or perhaps utter lack of concern—most Filipinos have toward Filipino boxers other than Manny Pacquiao, and to a lesser extent, half-bloods Brian Villoria and Nonito Donaire. The dangers Pinoy boxers face are already very real, and they are exacerbated by the lack of a coordinated system or organization that will monitor the health, safety, training, matches, and general welfare of Filipino fighters.

Both Gorres and Amonsot got immediate and world-class medical attention because they were fortunate enough to be in the ALA stable of Tony and Michael Aldegeur. The Aldeguers went to great lengths to make sure that their fighters survived their rendezvous with death. Poor Lito Sisnorio wasn’t so lucky—he had no one. Not a single soul came forward to really help Sisnorio fight the fight of his life. If such a coordinated system or organization had been in place then, the chances of Sisnorio surviving that ultimately fateful ordeal would have increased exponentially. In fact, he wouldn’t have been put in such a preposterously dangerous position had this system been in place then.

Unfortunately, such a system didn’t exist then, and it still doesn’t exist now. Sisnorio’s death in 2007 should have already been the wake-up call that would facilitate the establishment of such a system, but apparently, no one cared enough to actually do something. The Games and Amusement Board, tasked to oversee the licensing of boxers and other athletes, can only do so much. In fact, it has proven to be near inadequate in protecting Filipino boxers. As such, many a number of Pinoy fighters—in particular, those who are not affiliated with the country’s prominent boxing stables—pursue the sport without the benefit of a safety net in case anything untoward happens to them (as in the case of Sisnorio). In addition, most Filipino boxers have very limited options in case their careers bomb out or when their once successful careers fizzle out, as in the cases of Luisito Espinosa and Rolando Navarette. This is the sad reality that many Filipino boxers have to deal with, and what’s sadder is that they can’t do anything about it. All they can do is work hard, pray to any and all deities they know, hope for the best, and let the chips fall as they may.

ABS-CBN and the people who organized "Hangad na Paghihiganti" gave Z Gorres a fitting and heartwarming tribute last Sunday. Pinoy boxer Michael Domingo even exacted a measure of revenge on Gorres's behalf by knocking out Luis Melendez later that night. These, however, are not enough. If these people truly want to honor Gorres, the best thing they can do is fix the system so that every Filipino boxer will have a safety net in case something goes tragically wrong.

Gorres's tear-jerking, emotional return to the ring last Sunday was a sad but apt reminder of the inherent dangers of boxing. It should also be enough to convince people in position to really do something to protect and take care of our boxers.

Is Japeth a Joke?

Japeth Paul C. Aguilar is supposed to be the future, the would-be face of Philippine basketball. He is supposed to be thisclose to becoming the first Filipino ever to play in the National Basketball Association. For now, however, he is the biggest disappointment in Pinoy hoops, an overhyped bust who has failed to live up to the lofty expectations that preceded him.

The six-foot-nine Aguilar managed to string together a few good tuneup games last year against PBA teams, but ranged against taller, heftier, more talented opponents in international tuneup games and tournaments, the 23-year-old former Western Kentucky Hilltopper has been woefully erratic and oftentimes mediocre. Against topflight competition, Aguilar has stunk badly, looking a lot more like a boy among men and a lot less of an NBA prospect. He has made no impact at all---no double-doubles, no monster 20-20s; just a splattering of six-point, five-rebound efforts. The much-ballyhooed Aguilar, in fact, has often been outshone by the diminutive trio of JV Casio, Chris Tiu, and Andy Barroca.

So far, Aguilar has been underwhelming, unimpressive, and uninspiring. He is soft, plays on the perimeter, has no post game whatsoever, and shies away from contact. At times he looks lost and lackadaisical, other times tentative and scared, sometimes detached and disengaged. On offense, he wanders too much on the perimeter, drifting to the three-point line when he should be fighting for position in the paint and shooting threes when he should be attacking the basket. On defense, he is relatively useless---disappointingly clueless on how to use his size, length, and athleticism to make an impact defensively a la Rudy Hatfield or Marc Pingris.

Now it appears that Aguilar has possible attitude problems, even personal issues. In Smart Gilas's recent U.S. tour, he allegedly brought along his girlfriend, which was, according to a report, an "apparent breach of trust." Bringing along a girlfriend may not be much on the surface, but the fact is, it reveals an underlying lack of focus and worse, hubris. Bottomline is he shouldn't have done it. No one else did, why should he? He was there to compete and learn the game, not smooch around with his newly minted beau.

Granted, Aguilar was indeed served a full plate way too early. People asked---perhaps even expected---Aguilar to mature, learn the game, and play at an extremely high level immediately, and apparently, this all-in-one, all-at-the-same time process has taken its toll on the young man. But even this argument rings hollow. Aguilar can't use pressure and lofty expectations as excuses. He brought all of these to himself. He enjoyed the attention. He wanted it, and he enjoyed it. He enjoyed being the talk of the town. He soaked in all the ego-inflating superlatives written about him and he basked in the glow of the spotlight. Aguilar put himself front and center in the unforgiving spotlight of Philippine basketball, and now, he is shrinking just as the stakes are getting higher.

Sadly, tragically, Japeth Aguilar is turning into Marlou Aquino 2.0: great size, tantalizing potential, stomach-squirming play, disappointing attitude. At least Aquino wasn't this gifted. Aguilar, on the other hand, is a different story. He is too good, too gifted to be this bad, this disappointing, this ineffective. For a six-foot-nine, long-limbed, fleet-footed, uber-athlete to be this shockingly inept is unacceptable, especially when he is all but carrying the hopes of an entire basketball-crazy nation. Much has been given to Japeth Aguilar, and much is expected of him.

And rightfully so. Japeth Paul C. Aguilar is supposed to be the future, the would-be face of Philippine basketball. Now, he has to start playing the part. Unless, of course, he's nothing but hype.