Eight Minutes, 0 Points, 0 Assists and 1 Turnover (Arguable)

And you are quite happy with that. Welcome to the land of point guards. So no, you won’t find your name screaming stats from the boxscore. Heck, it’s only inter-department office basketball after all, so all the recorded stats are the points scored and fouls (kaldagan, according to the Black Mamba team) made and you can’t expect they record the other numbers that really matter (field goals, percentage, rebounds, assists, etc etc)… I always imagine that we can play in a league where such (a la Yahoo/NBA.com) is updated play-by-play. You know, I am a real sucker for numbers.

And numbers I don’t have in our last game for the elimination round. Around 8 minutes (5 or so in the 2nd quarter, and 2+ in the final quarter), zero attempts meaning I scored zilch and no assists at all. There was one arguable turnover, a pass I made to Arnold, White’s rebounding demon, which he did not handle (or that my pass was too high)… That is not actually the bad news because we did win the game and clinched the number two spot and advanced to the semis (yey, pahinga. Assuming I can still play in the next round/s)… So, to sum it up, it was a goddamn good night for our team.

As I was saying earlier, welcome to the land of point guards--- hobbits of the hardwood and most of the time, damn underrated and overlooked (Am I saying, I am one?)… No, not the Chris Paul, Chauncey Billups, Jay Jay Helterbrand or Jimmy Alapag type of point guards, those kinds virtually dominate the stat categories because they are superstars. Think more like, Chris Quinn, Anthony Carter, Don Dulay or Froilan Baguion. Scrappy play, spotty minutes and simply effective at what they do. Normally, I post my actual (personal) numbers but earlier tonight’s game was different in a lot of ways: I thought I contributed things that more than met the eye (and the score sheet), I acted as pseudo-coach as always and I just do hope they respect me and some of the decisions I made during the course of the ball game.

Not much numbers here, but you can keep a tab on these stats…

1st quarter: Right off tip-off, I fire the first shot at trash talk telling the team to run, run and run because the Black team was a slow and plodding squad (Not sure though if anybody heard it.) We were off to a good start and led after the first canto.

2nd quarter: We were still leading, but Black was starting to come back. Paul Navarro, the other team’s point guard had 3 offensive rebounds and the same number of putbacks. I had the same number of Putang Ina’s as well, telling the team to watch out for the little guy because he was practically putting the Black team within striking distance. We led by 10 points at the turn. Not bad.

3rd quarter: Three straight baskets by Black to put them within four points to start the quarter. We called a timeout and I reminded them that we were not making an effort to stop their fastbreak attempts. We responded and put back some sort of order and pad the lead back up to 8 points. Somewhere here, I was clapping right in front of Ron del Mundo’s face as he passed by the bench (again, not sure if he did see me do that) Also of note, Kristian at the freethrow line and Paolo Mariano was distracting him with the timed “cough” as he shoots the free throw, Kristian misses the first. And Paolo does it again in the second, and Kristian again misses. However, the referee awarded Kristian a third free throw for the errr, distraction. (Efff you ref, that’s part of our defensive gameplan)

4th quarter: Paul was at it again, easily pushing people around like it he was editing in his Avid/Premiere machine. I reminded the referee that the same little guy was probably older than him! (He got the point, and called a foul on Paul on two consecutive plays now seeing the Mr. Navarro’s inadvertent elbows and subliminal shoves. That gave him his 4th personal foul, and clearly his aggression on both ends was a bit affected.) The Black team was making their famous run at end games and cut down the lead to 2 points… We held on, and that’s the most important stat of the evening. Ball game. We win.
So yeah, hobbits of the hardwood will be difficult to appreciate but you know in our own little ways, we’d be making a mark one way AND the other.