PBA: Opportunity knocks again for Jvee Casio, Alaska Aces

He was wide open.

In a game that was a war, where every shot was contested and meant something, Alaska Ace Jvee Casio found himself with a clear lane to the basket. There was no Rain or Shine defender to stop him from putting his team up by two with seconds left in overtime. There was nothing to stop him from making that basket and giving the Aces a great opportunity to make it to the Finals.

But he slipped. He fell. A storyline for the ages transformed into what will be one of the biggest “What-ifs” in team history.

With the fourth quarter in full swing, Casio had been quiet all throughout the game. Dondon Hontiveros and Cyrus Baguio, teammates who had been relatively impact-less for the first three games of the series could all of a sudden do no wrong. And so Casio deferred to those veterans, with no qualms.

But in the last two minutes, with the Aces surviving despite import Henry Walker’s ejection, Casio decided to be quiet no more. All of a sudden, one of the most humble and laidback dudes caught fire.

Coming off of screen threes. Wet

Isolation leaning sideways treys. Wet.

Floaters under duress to send the game into overtime. Wild.

With 4.8 seconds left, Casio took command of a play that was stopped by Rain or Shine on two straight possessions - dump the ball into Sonny Thoss inside, and read the situation. “Nagkaroon ng opportunity. We wanted the ball inside,” Casio recalled.

But with two fouls to give, Rain or Shine stopped the plays and eventually got wise to what the Aces wanted to do. Casio, tasked to be a recipient on the play, had to change his mindset.

“Nakita ko yung puwang. Kaya na-take ko. Nakita ko yung opportunity, so I just grabbed it.”

Suddenly the game was sent into overtime, one more opportunity that no one  to make it to the Finals.

“Every year ganun naman ang goal mo. You have to be strong individually. Gusto mo maganda ang defense mo, especially individually kasi andaming magaling na guards sa PBA,” Casio said.

“Every year, the same thing. You have to be strong.”

Jvee Casio read what Arizona Reid wanted to do perfectly. He had baited Reid into thinking that Paul Lee was wide open for a kick-out pass and had hid behind Thoss in the shaded area to intercept the passing lanes. Casio was never known as a lockdown defender, but gradually he has begun to be adept at reading where the ball was going and picking it off for a fastbreak. It came from being familiar with his teammates, their tendencies on defense and where they wanted to lead defenders.

“Timing lang siguro,” Casio says. “It’s really team defense that resulted in that interception. You can see na kung ano nangyari doon, it’s what the others can give. That’s what happened sa interception.”

Take a look again [if you can] at what happened during that steal. When Casio stole the ball and was heading for the basket, count the number of Rain or Shine players who tried to chase after him. Zero. In an overtime game where everyone was giving their all, RoS had already conceded the two points, and were probably mapping out how they would respond.

Casio was alone. All the way to the basket. Easiest two points in the game.

Casio had not seen his teammate Calvin Abueva fall to the ground trying to grab his own missed shot on the previous possession. He did not know that the spot on the floor, which a few seconds later he would run on, was not suitable for sneakers. In his mind, there was only one objective: “I just wanted to score. I had the opportunity. I wanted to grab the opportunity.”

As Casio gathered for the layup, thousands of Aces fans in attendance were jumping on their seats. The rain outside had stopped, but inside, a sea of red and white was threatening to blow the roof off the Smart-Araneta Coliseum. As Casio gathered for the layup to give the Aces a two-point lead, eyes grew wide.

When he slipped, eyes grew even wider in horror.

On the floor after taking a nasty fall, Casio remembers not knowing that anything was wrong. “Wala naman akong naramdaman. Nahulog lang talaga ako.” It was a shocking reversal from what was a sure thing. Even the reactions were strange: Aces fans went mute all of a sudden, while fans of Rain or Shine didn’t know whether to react in joy, or worry. Casio’s fall wasn’t one of those “Ay nahulog siya, nakakatawa parang cartoons!” It was a “hindi muna ako hihinga hangga’t hindi siya tumayo uli.” It was that bad. All of a sudden, dreams of unexpected runs to the Finals were washed away, and only hope that Casio would be okay lingered.

As he walked off the floor, the game still had to continue. Rain or Shine had battled through their own adversity as well. Paul Lee was suffering what looked like a concussion, and they were dying to win this game as much as the Aces did. Beau Belga, having his way inside and outside with the Aces, scored the final two points on a powerful inside excursion. However, he couldn’t make a bonus free throw. The window was still open. Despite what happened, Alaska still had a chance for another overtime.

“Sinubukan ko lang kung kaya ko tumakbo o tumalon. I wanted to go in. He [Coach Alex Compton] asked if I could, and I said ‘Kaya ko, coach.’” Casio remembers.

Throughout our conversation, Jvee Casio kept repeating the word “opportunity.” He said it so much, it felt like lyrics that he was trying to memorize for a song. It came pouring out of his mouth in almost every single sentence. I realize that it was because of the sheer number of opportunities he had to help deliver a win to the Aces: The jumpers in the fourth quarter. The layup. And now, with time left on the clock, there was one last opportunity.

He would be damned if he’d let it slip away.

Baguio received the ball off the inbounds and drove towards the basket where he was met by a battalion of Elasto Painters. “Cyrus had a good lane, but nagkaroon ng broken play,” Casio recalled.

Because of Baguio’s drive, an extra defender collapsed on him. And inexplicably, that defender left Casio wide open from the perimeter. “Broken play, pero more on read. Kaya pina-practice namin yan.” Casio bellowed for Baguio to pass the ball. Baguio found him on the outside and pitched a perfect pass.

Casio rose up for a three pointer, a winning basket, and a trip the Finals. The ball flew straight and through.

But he missed.

The ball fell to an Ace, and somehow Casio got the ball. He rose up, closer to the basket.

He missed.

More than the missed layup, the injury affected Casio’s knees. He had no lift. All the effort he extends into preparing for a jumper changed because of the injury. “I didn’t have time to think about the play. I wasn’t able to adjust my shot,” Casio says.

As the Elasto Painters celebrated, the camera turned, for a brief second, on Casio. His face, a look of disappointment and grief, said it all. He limped towards the dugout, with uncertainty shrouding the Aces. What once was a Final trip became a Game 5 against one of the deadliest teams in the Association.

They would have to do it again. All over again.

He was wide open, but he missed.

He also didn’t want to talk to me. I could feel it, as he tried to recollect his thoughts about the game. Jvee Casio, one of the nicest and most down-to-earth guys in the league, didn’t want to talk about it. But it wasn’t because he was mad or irritated, or at least I hope it wasn’t. It was because of one simple reason:

Game five was still one more day away.

You might think that Casio was up all night reliving that missed opportunity to win the game with two jumpers, but you’d be wrong. “No. I don’t think of it that way. I missed the shot,” Casio admits. “That’s the bottom line.”

You might think that it would be impossible to bounce back in game five, but again you’d be mistaken. “It’s game five. It’s a battle”, Casio says. “Do-or-die, we have to win. Both teams have to win.

“It’s just a matter of winning that game.”

Casio doesn’t want to talk, because he wants to let his performance in game five do the talking. What’s the use of playing with regrets when there’s still an opportunity.

Opportunity. There’s that word again. But it rings true. With Game 5, there’s an opportunity for both teams. One More Chance, Popy and Basha style.

No one knows if Casio will play.  You ask Casio, and he doesn’t know too. “Gametime-decision, yun lang masasabi ko ngayon.”

I end the talk by thanking him for his time. But then Casio interrupts me, to say one last thing.
 
“Siyempre as a player gusto mo rin maglaro.”

Casio, stoic as always, couldn’t resist leaving me with this line. That’s all I needed to know from him. That’s all the confirmation I needed that he had moved on.

One last chance.

One last opportunity.

One last game five for one of these two teams. - AMD, GMA News