Tim Cone and the end of Purefoods dynasty It ended swiftly, brutally. A dynasty that took them more than a year to build ended after 48 minutes. After endless hours of practices and film sessions, after surviving and winning for so long, the championship reign of the Purefoods Star Hotshots ended at the hands of the Meralco Bolts at the Cuneta Astrodome. The dynasty that looked primed for another run was ended at the hands of merciless marauders who would not be denied this time. The Bolts tried several uprisings in the past but they always found themselves on the raw end. With a new tactician in the lead, they knew this was their best chance to finally stake their claim to the throne. It was unlike any battle the dynasty has ever faced. It wasn’t a marathon. It was a sprint. There was no rearranging of pieces, no realigning of battle lines. This was one strike and you’re out, one miss you die. The dynasty has suffered losses before but at the end of those they could always go back to their stronghold and prepare for the next battle. They were good at studying what went wrong, devising a counter-attack, and pushing each other to play even harder because the earlier effort was not enough. This was not the case this time. They found themselves on the wrong end of numbers. They have no one else to blame but themselves. Everyone knew it would end because it always ends. It was beyond explanation how it even lasted that long. Championships, no matter how fiercely you hold on to it, will always find themselves at the hands of another. Dynasties, no matter how strongly you build it, will always weaken, crumble, and die. With 55 seconds left in the game, Purefoods’ enemies were at the door. They watched as wood splintered with every hit of their opponents’ battering ram. The king looked at the faces of his most trusted men. They looked tired, battle-weary as the kingdom burned around them. The bitter taste of defeat was already on their lips. Cone took his board to draw up new tactics but he quickly decided against it. This was not what his team needed from him right now. They didn’t need the master tactician. They needed the motivator who still believed they could do the impossible. Youve won four straight championships and you act like this? I cant believe that youre acting like this after four championships.You gotta be able to play this game and look each other in the face. There’s no (expletive) blaming on this team. Nobody’s perfect in this team. This is our own fault collectively. We weren’t ready to play this conference. We felt we could just turn the switch on and say ‘We’re going to play now’ but nothing happened, fellas. Nothing happened. If you think you played great, and you played great, and you played great all conference and someone else didn’t, you’re just fooling with yourself. We didn’t do this. WE didn’t do this. I didn’t do this. You didn’t do this and we have to accept that.It’s not somebody else’s fault.We’re not going to play the part. That’s not who we are. We’re going to walk away with our heads held high. (Expletive) everybody else. It was like Leonidas to his 300, like Theoden to his Eorlingas, like William Wallace to the Sons of Scotland. With that, Purefoods rode out and met their would-be conquerors at the door for one final stand, one last act of defiance against the inevitable. They did not score a single point after that point but Cone’s message got through. They lost, but at the very end, they lost together. And with one final message, before this dynasty ended, Cone already started planting the seed for another run next conference. Cone’s message cut deep because, for that minute or so, we all felt like we were part of his team because his words echoed true in our lives. After reaching a milestone, how many times have we settled instead of pushing even further? After meeting disappointments, how many times have we blamed someone else instead of looking at our own faults? Cone’s words were said in the context of a basketball game but his message cuts across. His message for his team and maybe even for you and me is that we may lose this championship, we may lose other championships throughout the course of their lives but we can never ever allow ourselves to lose the champion inside us. https://ph.sports.yahoo/blogs/the-underdog/tim-cone-and-the-end-of-purefoods--dynasty-073900747-nba.html #adminbubbles
Posted on: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 07:40:20 +0000
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