MindaNews / 24 June (MindaNews / 24 June) — Apologies to Gary Granada and basketball fans who may remember that song dedicated to the fabled Barangay Ginebra team. But as I watched the recently concluded NBA Finals, there was one team that captured that never-say-die spirit of Ginebra, and that was the Indiana Pacers.
Indiana did not win the championship last Monday. The trophy went to the top-seeded, young, energetic Oklahoma City Thunder. But Indiana instead won the hearts of basketball fans with their improbable run to the playoffs.
At the start of the playoffs in April, Indiana wasn’t the favorite to win.
They were the fifth-seed in the Eastern Conference, with no multi-millionaire celebrity player, just two All-Stars, one of them branded as “overrated” in the name of point guard Tyrese Haliburton.
But Haliburton and company surprised everyone.
The hustle, the comebacks from more than ten-digit point deficits, the hustle defense and clutch triples, they beat the two top-seeded All-Star caliber teams in Cleveland Cavaliers and New York Knicks to barge into the Finals and take the Thunder to seven games.
Their dream run, though, ended in a snap, literally, when Haliburton tore his Achilles heel in the first quarter of that game last Monday, just when he was willing his team to win with three triples in that quarter.
As ESPN wrote: their breathtaking run to the Finals ends with heartbreak. Haliburton on the floor crying in pain. The rest of the Pacers fought valiantly, managing to take a one-point lead at halftime, but sputtered in the end with the flurry of the Thunder’s vaunted storm of defense to offense.
In the end, the 2025 Finals will be remembered with a what if. If Haliburton played through that Game 7, how much was the chance that his team would have been the one to hoist the trophy?
It’s a heartbreaking end of a fairytale sports story, one that is similar to the Barangay Ginebra of the ’80s and ’90s.
Barangay Ginebra back then was not the best team. There were the grand slam teams of San Miguel and Alaska, and the talented teams of Purefoods and Shell. But they all feared Ginebra.
Ginebra may not have the sharpest shooters, best rebounders, great playmakers, or best picks from the drafts. But they have three secret weapons—legendary playing coach Sonny Jaworski, their die-hard fans and their hustle.
No lead was safe with Ginebra. Not even a double-digit lead. They would somehow flip the switch in the fourth quarter where they would hustle on both sides of the court, harass ball-handlers, claw for rebounds, scramble for loose balls, score on fast breaks, miracle shots and triples.
Some nights they still lose on very narrow margins, but some nights their comeback wins are euphoric.
Ginebra fans would remember their miracle. In 1991, they came back from a 1-3 deficit in the first conference Finals, and won the series with an improbable tightly-guarded buzzer-beating jump shot from the late shooting guard Rudy Distrito the Destroyer.
Jaworski’s Ginebra won four titles during his stint as playing coach. After that, there were different eras of Barangay Ginebra that won championships with MVPs Caguioa and Helterbrand, and brilliant point guard LA Tenorio. But nothing could compare to the greatness of Jaworski’s Ginebra, the team that was immortalized by the song of Gary Granada. What they lack in skill they make up with grit and hustle.
Pinoys always love the underdog team. It’s been a while that we have seen a team displayed that, in the PBA or the NBA. The Indiana Pacers just showed that. They were just one win away from taking it all.
One wonders if Indiana can make one more run after this. An Achilles heel injury is one of the most brutal injuries, athletes recover after a year. A lot of things can happen after one NBA season. Can Haliburton regain his razzle-dazzle form or would he slow down? Would the Indiana team still be intact?
What about the rest of the league, who will trade, add more star players and rookies as their centerpiece for the championship?
Just like Rocky and its spinoff series Creed, the Indiana story in Part One ends with a very close chance to victory. But to paraphrase a line from the movie Creed: their opponent may have won the title, but the Pacers won the night (or the playoffs).
Everyone hopes that there will be a sequel for Indiana in the next few seasons. A comeback from Hali. A redemption for the team. And that never-say-die attitude lives for one more playoff run.
(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. Tyrone A. Velez is a freelance journalist and writer.)
