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Louie
Alas has succeeded in basketball long enough it’s hard
to believe he hasn’t won a championship in the
Philippine Basketball League (PBL).
“When I
decided to return to the PBL,” Alas said, “all I wanted
was to be on a team that can win a championship. That’s
why I chose Hapee.”
Alas
gets a shot at fulfilling that dream when his Complete
Protectors take on the dynasty known as the Harbour
Centre Batang Pier in a best-of-five title series in the
PBL Lipovitan Amino Sports Cup.
As a
coach, Alas has won three titles in college (all with
Letran in the National Collegiate Athletic Association)
and one in the pros (with the Manila Metrostars in the
Metropolitan Basketball Association), but never in the
PBL.
HAPEE’S Gabe Norwood and
Harbour Centre’s Jason Castro will definitely lure the
spotlight in the finals, and so will head coaches Louie
Alas (Hapee) and Jorge Gallent (Harbour Centre). -- Roy
Domingo
“[Winning here] is one of my goals. This is the only
championship I haven’t won besides the [Philippine
Basketball Association],” Alas added.
Alas and
Hapee may find their hunger a common motivation. Hapee
last won a PBL crown five years ago.
“Now
that [we’re] here, we won’t waste this opportunity,”
Alas declared Tuesday in the Philippine Sportswriters’
Association Forum at Shakey’s United Nations Avenue.
Awaiting
Alas and Hapee are the defending champions Batang Pier,
who will open finals hostilities today at the Batangas
City Sports Center.
The
Mikee Romero-owned Harbour Centre has been on a tear in
the last four conferences, winning the championships in
all of them. While Hapee wants to end a drought, Harbour
Centre obviously wants to extend a dominance unheard of
in league annals.
“Every
conference, there’s pressure to win the championship,”
said Jorge Gallent, the unassuming Harbour coach who was
once Alas’s teammate in the A&W squad under coach Joe
Lipa in the PBL in the late 1980s.
“Definitely, it will be a long series. The team that
will play well in the end and the team that will be
aggressive has the best chance of winning the series,”
Gallent added in the weekly forum sponsored by Shakey’s,
the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., Accel,
Brickroad Gym, Aspen Spa and MedCentral Medical Clinics
and
Diagnostics Center.
Harbour
Centre and Hapee were the protagonists in the last
conference, with Harbour winning via a series score of
2-1. But this is the first tournament where Alas is
coaching Hapee.
The
rosters of the two teams are intact, with former
Division One player Gabe Norwood leading Hapee and
Australia
league-bound Jason Castro heading Harbour’s assault.
Norwood,
a consensus No. 1 draft pick when he applies for the
pros in the off-season, would want to exorcise his
subpar performance in the previous title series, what
with his impending departure.
“I told
the players, especially those who will turn
professional, to win it for the team, the organization,
before they leave,” Alas said, referring obviously to
Norwood.
A
front-runner for the Most Valuable Player award, Norwood
will banner Hapee’s campaign with collegiate MVP Jervy
Cruz and veterans Francis Mercado and Mark Borboran.
With a
stint in the Singapore Slingers awaiting him, Castro
would like to leave his team, the league and the country
on a winning note. And the two-time PBL MVP has the
supporting cast—in guards TY Tang and Solomon Mercado
and in a battle-tested frontline—to make that goal a
reality.
Hapee is
the underdog in the duel, especially since Cruz is not
expected to play today. He is still waiting for a
hamstring injury he sustained in the semifinals to heal.
Batang
Pier swept San Mig Coffee in the semifinals, 3-0, while
the Complete Protectors labored to get a 3-1 win over
the pesky Whoppers in their own final-four series. |
