Cone furious, Black unrepentant

Meralco dodged the bullet. At least, for now. In a performance far more improved than it exhibited in its first two games, Meralco, in Game 3 Wednesday night, stayed alive with a victory to energize its expectant fans, and left Ginebra and its never-say-die followers in throes of anxiety.

Meralco, known as the Bolts, beat the Gin Kings, 94-81, for its first win in three games — and the PBA Governors’ Cup best-of-seven title series is now 2-1. Game 4 is tomorrow, where Meralco will try to tie the series.

Meralco, eyeing a first PBA title, is of course not out of the woods yet. Far from it. The team merely avoided a 3-0 deficit, a hole where no team has come out alive. In more than 40 years of PBA history, just one team has broken this jinx, San Miguel Beer, just last year.

Meralco made sure it will not have to do a San Miguel rally from 3-0. Hunger in its belly and tunnel vision in its eyes, in a season where the championship is in sight, the Bolts played with the urgency of line men trying to rescue family before darkness broke.

Allen Durham played a key role, befitting his stature as the Best Import of the conference. He poured in 38 points, grabbed 20 rebounds and scored five blocks, one against Ginebra’s import Justin Brownlee, which Durham later described as a little payback.

Earlier, Brownlee had blocked him — not once, but twice!— and Durham said it made him look silly. “He made me look foolish earlier, so it felt good to pay him back a little bit,” the huge Durham said.

But Durham is first to admit that the job isn’t done. “I mean, we won a game tonight, but we haven’t really done anything significant,” he said in a post-game interview. “Just extended the game a little bit, extended the series. Now we get to Game Four, we win that, and we have a series.”

Meralco also has Reynel Hugnatan to thank for the victory, after a series that began to look like a walk in the park for the Gin Kings, which took a 2-0 lead and looked headed to a thirdstraight win, until the Bolts exploded in the final quarter with a 19-4 run that sealed the win.

Hugnatan joined forces with Durham, firing seven triples in his 22-point show, and is likely to see more action in Game 4. He was actually a substitute for starter Ranidel de Ocampo, who left the game after being injured in the first quarter.

While the game was fast and furious, giving the fans the entertainment they paid for, it had a dark ending.

Ginebra coach Tim Cone left the court in a huff, refused to shake hands with Meralco counterpart Norman Black, and did not meet the sports press for a post-game interview. Cone must have really been p----d.

The reason, everyone theorized, was the timeout, which Black called with 38 seconds left, the score at 94-81, meaning the game was in the bag for Meralco.

Cone apparently took it as an insult. The timeout may have looked harmless and insignificant, but it did violate one of basketball’s unwritten rules: a coach does not call a timeout when his team is ahead and the game is all but over. It’s akin to players dribbling out the last several seconds, determinedly not making a shot, and just letting the clock run out.

Black was defiant. “That’s his problem, not mine,” he said of Cone’s reaction. But here, the Sports Fan says Black is wrong. Basketball is also about codes of conduct, unwritten and written. You don’t gloat in victory; humility is the accepted standard. In the PBA, violating this standard is almost unheard of. And over in the NBA — which sets the bar for us, admit it or not — this is the acceptable behavior. You don’t add insult to injury.

Expect Cone and Ginebra to come out with all guns blazing tomorrow.

POSTSCRIPT: Late yesterday, Ginebra coach Tim Cone said in a SPIN. ph interview: “I regret my actions after Game Three ended. Yes, I was upset about the timeout that was called late in the game, but there is no one in the PBA that I respect more than Norman Black.”