MANILA: For someone playing in a Philippine Basketball Association title series for the first time, one would get the feeling that Air21 has everything going its way - judging from how those involved in the team talked.
Or maybe, it’s just the Express’ own way of shutting out the factors going against them. “To feel intimidated is to feel negative,” Air21 coach Bo Perasol said on Monday during the series’ formal launch. ‘In our company, we have a motto: ‘We deliver no matter what.’”
‘No matter what’ could turn out to be unconquerable odds - championship experience, manpower and crowd support - for a team which, to say the least, overachieved in the entire tournament and is looking to take that a notch higher.
Of all the members of the Express, only one player has had legitimate championship experience, Arwind Santos, and that experience wasn’t even in the pros.
It came for three straight seasons, when the reed-thin sophomore led Far Eastern to two UAAP championships.
Manpower, or the seeming lack of it in comparison to the Gin Kings, could also spell the difference, with Ginebra as deep as any team could get with coach Jong Uichico having the luxury of going to as far as his 13th man.
And then there’s crowd support, one aspect the Express truly don’t have the capability of matching, maybe even if the company’s big bosses decide to bring all their employees to the Araneta Coliseum for Game 1 today.
But all of those things mentioned, none from among the Air21 stalwarts have refused to yield, even in talk, giving the reporters something to ponder at that maybe Perasol sees something that is not clearly discernible.
“Mas maraming fans na kalaban, mas maganda,” said Santos , who is running second behind Sta. Lucia’s Kelly Williams in the season-ending MVP race. “Mas may challenge. Basta mapantayan lang namin ang level nila, okay na sa amin ‘yun.”
Air21 is playing in its first championship series after a long, six-year wait, one which saw the Express qualify outright for the Final Four where they took the best that Magnolia could offer to prevail, 4-2. And beating such a talented team like the Beverage Masters, who are also no strangers to commanding a huge following, may have given this batch of Express the cockiness to talk the way they did.
