Atoy Co capped off his offensive
brilliance with 39 points as Crispa completed its 0-2 comeback
against Toyota in the 1976 All-Philippine championship and pull off
PBA's first grand slam.
Crispa tops Toyota, wins grand slam
Co unloads 39 to spark Redmanizers'
110-92 win
By Ding Marcelo
Bulletin Today
Published Wednesday December 22, 1976
Crispa's never-say-die Redmanizers
added another first in their glorious history last night as they
destroyed Toyota with compelling ease, 110-92, to win the
All-Philippine championship and complete a sweep of all Philippine
Basketball Association titles this year.
Crispa's victory, their third straight
in the best-of-five series, climaxed a long, excruciating climb by
the Redmanizers who, aside from scoring the PBA's first grand slam,
also became the first team in the two-year-old league to win a title
coming from two games down.
A dazzling offensive complemented by a
crippling, swarming defense gave the Redmanizers the edge all evening
as both teams were initially hampered by the tremendous pressure of
the match, missing easy shots and committing ghastly errors in
alarming succession to the surprise of some 25,000 spectators at the
Araneta Coliseum.
All Redmanizers responded brilliantly,
even tiny Cristino Calilan who contributed immensely to the victory
after sitting out the preceding three games of the series. But the
night truly belong to Fortunato Co, Jr.
The one-time Mapua Tech standout who
played under the shadows of William Adornado, now sidelined by
injury, spewed the deadliest fire, banging in 39 points, as he led
the Crispa scoring juggernaut.
Co, who attributed his fine form to a
strong of disciplkine “as compared in the past,” wrought the
greatest havoc on the Toyota defense, routing three guards assigned
to him, including Robert Jaworski and Francis Arnaiz who both fouled
out. Even coach Dante Silverio admitted later that Co “was a major
problem.”
Co's 39 points brought his total to 159
points in the series – an average of 31.80 points per game. He shot
20 points in the first game, 41 in the second, 34 in the third and 25
in the fourth.
So confident were the Redmanizers that
banners proclaiming them champions were unfurled with still more than
a minute left and jubilant team members were already hugging each
other in anticipation of the victory, not to mention team manager
Danny Floro and coach Baby Dalupan who embraced each other.
“We were prepared and we really
played hard to win,” said Dalupan whose wizardry with his boys
produced gems even with the likes of Calilan and Alberto Guidaben.
And he so inspired Bernard Fabiosa that the Crispa spitfire also came
out with another dazzling performance despite a sprained suffered the
evening before for which he used pain-killing injections to deaden
the pain.
It was the fourth straight championship
for Crispa after giving up the first two to Toyota. And the experts
are wondering whether there will be another fields for the
Redmanizers to conquer. After all, the team just about set another
record that will take some time to equal or surpass.
Coach Silverio admitted his team's
offensive weakness and said, “We have nothing to compensate for
it.”
“They really are a good team,” he
said. “and they deserved to win.”
“We had the open shots, maybe we had
more attempts. But we missed a lot and this spelled the difference,”
Silverio noted.
Francis Arnaiz on whose shoulders many
had hoped for a Toyota comeback, likewise admitted the superiority of
the Redmanizers. He cited Co and Cyrus Mann in particular.
“He's (Mann) so intimidating, you
really had to think twice before making a move. Mann practically
controls the whole keyhole area,” said Arnaiz who lost the battle
for the series' most valuable player to Co in this particular match.
Co's worthiness for the award found
example in the dying minutes of the second quarter when he rattled
six straight points to give Crispa an 11-point spread at the half,
51-40.
Though the Tamaraws came back strong
early in the third quarter with eight successive points to narrow the
gap at 48-51, the Redmanizers did not panic and returned five with a
9-2 salvo that gave them another 10-point lead as quickly, 60-50.
From there, it was a matter of
answering the Tamaraws basket for basket and this the Redmanizers did
until that fateful last two minutes when the Tams, demoralized by the
impending defeat, lowered their guards completely, allowing Crispa to
score their biggest winning margin against their arch-rivals in the
series, an 18-pointer, that completely removed all the trimmings of a
championship match.
Crispa – 110
Co 39
Mann 11
Fabiosa 11
Soriano 10
P. Cezar 9
Hubalde 7
Guidaben 6
Calilan 6
Bunton 4
Varela 3
Dionisio 0
Pages 0
Toyota – 92
Jones 17
Arnaiz 14
Fernandez 13
Jaworski 12
Acuna 8
Smith 7
Segura 7
Bauzon 6
Cortez 4
Clarino 4
Refs: E. Cruz, I. Cahanding
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