Game 2, however, changed all that. I have to admit I haven't thought much of coach Lawrence Chongson of UE, even suspecting that the real brains behind the team was this bald assistant coach who seemed to do most of the thinking in the UE games that I saw. Today, however, Chongson earned my respect. Needing to shake things up, he made a coaching call, and the gamble worked for him. He earned my respect (1) by the strategy he developed, and (2) by having the guts to actually go ahead and execute a plan that would surely have drawn criticism if he failed. He also earned points for sportsmanship, when, with the game decided and the seconds ticking off, he instructed Paul Zamar not to take a shot anymore since the game was practically over. Zamar, however, took an uncontested 3 that went in and gave UE a 20 point lead. I saw Chongson apologize to Ateneo's Norman Black, and after that, sought out Zamar and told him off for taking the shot. For those who may ask why this is noteworthy, etiquette in this situation is that the offensive team, with the game wrapped up and the opponent no longer playing any defense, is no longer expected to shoot, but rather dribble out the clock.
As for the game, UE entered the game knowing it could not beat Ateneo with their regular game plan, and with their regular rotation. They also needed to break the tough defense of Ateneo, which was predominantly man-to-man, relying on good rotation and help defense. This is my assessment of Coach Chongson's strategy based on how I saw it unfold:
DEFENSE: Collapse on Al Husseini and dare Ateneo to hit the three. With the exception of Jai Reyes and Eman Monfort, UE seemed to even back off on the other Ateneo perimeter players, daring them to take the long ball. While this strategy would probably have been criticized if the threes were falling, the inability of Ateneo's other perimeter players to hit from outside allowed UE to stay in their tightly packed zone. Austria, Buenafe, Salamat, and Long all struggled from long distance.
OFFENSE: While they dared Ateneo to take the three pointer, they also utilized this as a weapon on offense, attacking Ateneo's bigs with perimeter shots. UE started with Elmer Espiritu and Val Acuna at center and power forward. Espiritu, with a slower Al Husseini on him, took advantage and hit a couple of three point shots early in the game. With Al Husseini and Baclao forced to extend their defense against the perimeter attack of UE, this opened up the inside for the slashing of Paul Lee, either for his own points or drop passes to his teammates. This has been a staple of UE's offense, but something they were not able to display in Game 1. A side effect of this strategy was also having UE's bigger and more athletic guards and wingmen on the inside against the smaller Ateneo guards and wingmen. Chongson knew that Ateneo's frontline was formidable, and decided to attack the weaker link - the guards. Ateneo's perimeter players were outshot from three by UE's bigmen, and outrebounded inside by their UE counterparts.
My take on this is UE won Game 2 because of their coach, or perhaps their coaching staff. They knew they needed to shake things up in terms of the gameplan, and they did so successfully. They key to Game 3 will be outside shooting - by the perimeter players of Ateneo and by the big men of UE.
