Anxiety filled the air of Santa Rosa, Laguna on Sunday night, when San Miguel Alab Pilipinas’ Bobby Ray Parks, Jr. got called for his fifth foul with 19 ticks left in the fourth, meaning he would not be able to finish Game One of the ABL Finals.
It wasn’t a questionable foul though, but an intentional one. Alab was down, 116-118, and he had to foul Mono Vampire BC’s Mike Singletary to freeze the clock. The latter then sank his freebies for a 120-116 lead.
“It’s tough,” rued the reigning Local Most Valuable Player, who still left Game One with an impressive 27 points — the most points scored by a local in the ABL Finals.
“It was definitely a sacrifice I had to take, that last foul.”
It was, indeed, a sacrifice. And luckily for him and the Filipino ball club, the basketball gods — and God, of course — smiled at them from above, and they made sure that Parks, Jr.’s sacrifice will not go for naught.
Just when the team was presumed dead, Alab was saved once again by the B-and-B duo of Justin Brownlee and Renaldo Balkman. The former sank a huge three-pointer, and the latter put Brownlee’s miss back to force an overtime.
A rejuvenated Alab came through in the extra period, with Brownlee taking care of business by scoring 10 of the team’s final 22 points to complete the comeback, 143-130, and gain a 1-0 lead in the best-of-five championship series.
“When there’s a will, there’s a way. And God has a plan and a purpose,” said the 6-foot-4 Parks, Jr. “Like what the media says, we’re not even supposed to be here.
“It’s just a blessing to come out of Game One with a win.”
Despite the hard-earned win though, Parks, Jr. admitted that Game One only brought more lessons for Alab. One of the major keypoints of the lecture was defense, as they gave up 130 points and allowed Mono’s starters to click well.
“It wasn’t a sweet win at all. We’re definitely upset that we gave so many points but we need to do a better job,” said the former two-time UAAP Most Valuable Player. “We need to make it more difficult for them.
“We need to make adjustments.”
