Explosive PBL title series under way

Rain or Shine and Magnolia Dairy Ice Cream begin their best-of-5 showdown for the 2006 PBL Heroes Cup crown today at the San Andres Gym in Manila in a series expected to go down-to-the-wire.

Both teams, for one, boast of formidable frontcourt combinations and an equally talented backcourt combo that have been making things happen for their respective teams.

Leading Rain or Shine’s bid is Jojo Tangkay while Arwind Santos is expected to carry the cudgels for the Wizards when they clash beginning at 4 p.m.

Magnolia coach Koy Banal is hoping that his other players will also step up big to match the manpower of Rain or Shine.

Harbour Centre and Granny Goose Tortillos tangle at 2 p.m. in a knockout contest for third place. The Port Masters are gunning for their best ever finish since joining the country’s premier amateur league last year.

While Banal has so much respect for Santos and Kelly Williams, he nonetheless believes that his other players, among them Kim Valenzuela, Jeff Chan, RJ Rizada, Mark Isip and Jason Misolas, have what it takes to bring them to the Promised Land again.

Though Williams leads the team in scoring and rebounding with 11.25 points and 10.58 rebounds a game, everybody is talking about Chan these days. The lefty shooter from Bacolod normed 20.5 points in the team’s two-game sweep of Tortillos.

"The most important thing in the series is bench scoring. It should not only about Arwind and Kelly, but it should be a total team effort," said Banal, who is hoping to steer the team to its second championship.

Magnolia, formerly Viva Mineral Water, clinched its first title by beating the Wel-Best franchise, 3-1.

That crushing loss, however, is still vividly etched in the mind of coach Caloy Garcia, and to remove it, they have to win the series this time.

"Siyempre nasa isipan ko pa yon, it was my first finals stint as a coach, so mahirap talagang kalimutan yon," said Garcia, who is gunning for his back-to-back championships after guiding the same team to victory in the Unity Cup.

Tangkay is averaging close to 15 points despite a limited performance the last time against Harbour where he suffered a slight knee injury. But’s he’s fine now and raring to win another title for Rain or Shine owners Raymund Yu and Terry Que.

Aside from Tangkay, also expected to provide Rain or Shine the needed firepower are JR Reyes, the league’s top blocker, Gilbert Malabanan, Marvin Ortiguerra, Jun Jun Cabatu and Ronjay Enrile.