BY NOLI CORTEZ
RYAN Gregorio knows losing is always a part of a coach’s
vocabulary. It is clear, however, that it would take some time before he gets
over the recent defeat of Purefoods in the PBA Philippine Cup championship duel
to Sta. Lucia Realty.
As long as Gre-gorio believes he and his Giants were robbed
of a record-tying victory, his words of "moving on" will continue to sound
shallow, even to him. And he will continue to be bitter, to the extent of
sounding like sour-graping.
"This is not yet a closed book," Gregorio stressed in an
interview yesterday, three days after the Giants lost to the Realtors 88-100 in
Game 7 of their championship battle at the Araneta Coliseum.
"Not to take any glitter away from their (Realtors’)
championship trophy, but this has been a confusing series, especially in the
appreciation of calls," he added. "I’ve never been so critical of the league
before, but now I have reasons to."
He admitted one major difference was that Sta. Lucia’s
players, led by Dennis Espino, who had a game-high 29 points, made the shots
when it mattered and his players did not.
"They, especially Espino, were making mincemeat of our
defense. He was making impossible shots. Theirs were out-and-in, ours were
in-and-out," he pointed out.
The biggest factor, he maintained, was the foul trouble that
hounded his key players.
"James (Yap), Marc (Pingris), Kerby (Raymundo)," he rattled
off. "In the end, we had virtually a scarecrow defense out there…. They knew
where to hit us hard."
A Giants win would have been the eighth for the franchise and
fifth All-Filipino crown, tying it with fabled Crispa as having the most titles
in an import-less tournament. Gregorio would also have gone down in the books as
the only Purefoods coach to have won two All-Filipino titles following his
team’s similar conquest in the 2004-05 tourney.
The Giants really gave it all, battling back from an early
0-2 deficit in the best-of-seven series and forcing the duel to go the full
route.
"We tried to salvage the championship and I thought we did a
tremendous job, despite all the distractions," said Gregorio.
The Realtors bagged their first All-Filipino crown and their
second overall after their 2001 Governors Cup win.
Gregorio, however, feels his team has been robbed. He had an
inkling of things to come when Yap was suspended for one game after his flagrant
foul-1 late in Game 3 was upgraded by Commissioner Sonny Barrios to an F2. He
served out the suspension in Game 5 won by the Realtors 88-76.
"If James was not suspended, who knows?" Gregorio posed. "We
could have won that game and Game 6, too, ending the series right there."
Purefoods management raised a big howl of protest over
Barrios’ decision, demanding where his authority to "upgrade" referees’
decisions’ comes from. To clear the air, the board asked Barrios to come up with
a set of guidelines that will prevent any such confusion while defining in more
concrete terms the powers of the commissioner regarding such issues.
"At this point, we just want to have those guidelines for all
of us to have a level playing field," said Gregorio, stating he plans on paying
the Commissioner’s Office a visit to clear the matter once and for all.
"Those controversies should still be answered," he vowed.
Despite those ‘distractions’ the finals series was still one
of the most avidly watched in league history, with a record 18,167 packing the
Big Dome and thousands more turned away for "security" reasons in the deciding
game.
Well and good but sometimes for the wrong reasons, maintained
Gregorio.
"We should all help popularize the league, but we have to do
it some other ways. Not through controversies… not at the expense of one team,"
he stressed.
