Crispa delivered the knockout blow on
Toyota to capture the 1976 PBA Second Conference crown. The 3-1
series victory gave the Redmanizers their third consecutive crown,
all at the expense of the Silver Tamaraws.
Crispa beats Toyota, 103-94; wins PBA
title
By Ding Marcelo
Bulletin Today
Published Friday November 19, 1976
Crispa played its characteristic deadly
game last night and brought down Toyota, 103-94, to win the
Philippine Basketball Association second conference championship
before another banner crowd of some 30,000 at the Araneta Coliseum.
The Redmanizers, brought to this fourth
game of a best-of-five titular series with Toyota by virtue of the
Silver Tamaraws' 108-98 victory Tuesday night, controlled the game
after erasing an early 1-6 deficit.
There was no fire it seemed from the
Silver Tamaraws whose comeback from a 0-2 deficit had placed them on
even odds with the Redmanizers for this decisive fourth game.
This time they were scattered by the
solid Crispa defense. Though the Redmanizers committed several
errors, such infractions had none of the severity of Francis Arnaiz's
miscue in which the ace Toyota guard passed a throw in right into the
hands of Redmanizer Reynaldo Franco that handed Crispa a 27-19 bubble
at the end of the first quarter.
The error seemed to pressage a bad
evening for Toyota as the Redmanizers, reportedly irked and at the
same time fired up by adverse reports that they could only win with
the help of shaky officiating, roared to five 12-point leads in the
final quarter, the last at 96-84 with Alberto Guidaben doing the
honors.
Guidaben's 10-point effort was
complimented with four crucial rebounds in the final quarter and his
performance was capped with an unusually solid defense against the
slithery Ramon Fernandez who could only shake his head from
Guidaben's effective harassing tactics.
So near-perfect was Guidaben's
performance that coach Baby Dalupan could only exclaim, “Magnificent,
magnificent. That guy is simply fantastic tonight.”
Alfredo Hubalde shared scoring honors
with Fortunato Co, Jr., whose off-and-on outbursts netted him 17
points like Hubalde.
Though it was far from the plus 30 he
made in two of the first three games of the series, Dalupan also
complimented him in the defense department in which he said Co shone.
Royal Tru-Orange rallied from a
12-point halftime deficit to turn back U-Tex, 115-111, to win their
battle for third place. The victory gave the Orangemen a 3-1 edge.
“In the final analysis, it was the
determination of the boys, and of course the breaks and maybe,
seguro, swerte lang talaga,” Dalupan said as his boys engaged in a
bit of horseplay at the dugout by pouring water, not champagne, on
each other.
Coach Dante Silverio, on the other
hand, could not hide his contempt at the referees whose officiating
he decried were as bad as the first two games which they lost.
“It was as bad as the first two
games,” he said of referees Igmidio Cahanding and Remigio Bartolome
who only two nights ago were the same persons whom he praised for
good officiating when his team won.
“No, only sometimes,” said Howard
Smith when asked whether officiating was bad.
Byron “Snake” Jones commented that
“Crispa played a harder, more determined game. They were more
organized,” he said.
So certain was Crispa of victory that
with still two minutes to go, the score at 100-90, banners
proclaiming the Redmanizers champions were unfurled, confetti
released in the air, and Arnaiz was overheard to express his
congratulations to Dalupan and team manager Danny Floro during a
Toyota throw-in near the bench.
It was the third consecutive PBA
championship for Crispa, making it the winningest ball club in the
country past Toyota which it tied with two titles each prior to
tonight's game.
The Redmanizers previously won the
All-Philippine championship and the All-Filipino title at first
conference, while Toyota bagged the first and second conferences of
the PBA in its maiden season last year.
The closest that Toyota could come to
after that 27-19 first quarter score was within two points, 37-39,
although when the Redmanizers threatened to pull away from 51-44, the
Silver Tamaraws narrowed it down to three points twice, the last at
56-59.
From there, there was no stopping the
Redmanizers, who posted a 10-point spread, 82-72, at the start of the
final quarter before increasing it to 12 for the foirst time at 88-76
on a steal by Bernard Fabiosa 8 minutes to go.
Crispa – 103
Co 17
Hubalde 17
Bunton 12
Franco 10
Guidaben 10
Soriano 10
Fabiosa 8
Dionisio 6
Mann 6
P. Cezar 3
Calilan 2
Pages 2
Toyota – 94
Jaworski 19
Arnaiz 17
Segura 15
Fernandez 12
Jones 11
Smith 10
Acuna 4
Tolentino 4
Rojas 2
Marcelo 0
Crispa 27 24 28 24 – 103
Toyota 19 25 28 22 – 94
Refs: I. Cahanding, R. Bartolome
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