There was little indication that Terrafirma would put up any sort of good basketball in the continuation of the 2021 PBA Philippine Cup.
First, they headed into the first two games of the season restart in Bacolor, Pampanga without top rookie pick Joshua Munzon who was ruled out for the conference due to a dislocated finger. Once inside the "semi-bubble," they then lost Roosevelt Adams due to amoebiasis and it just looked like the Dyip were bound to sink deeper in the standings as matchups with more favored teams loomed.
But no. Instead, they have done the opposite. A pair of big wins against powerhouse San Miguel and Barangay Ginebra helped Terrafirma climb out of the cellar, then another victory against a luckless Blackwater side propelled them onto seventh at 3-4 and into the playoff picture.
In those three surprising wins, the Dyip hardly resembled the squad that flat-out struggled in the first four games. Just take a look at these figures:
Terrafirma went from having the fourth-worst offense to producing 104.2 points per 100 possessions - a mark that would be league-best if it were stretched out for the entire conference. (Right now, they have the fifth-best offensive rating at 98.8 after seven games, just behind NLEX, San Miguel, Meralco, and Magnolia.)
Juami Tiongson has gotten a lot of credit - as well he should - for stepping up and producing for the Dyip who badly needed someone to take over, but pinning all the success on him would be reductive. After all, it would only take a total team effort for a side bereft of true star power as well as notable depth to truly accomplish something good.
Here are the five things that have worked out for Terrafirma in their three-game winning streak.
(Editor's note: Numbers were crunched by Ryan Alba from Stats by Ryan on DribbleMedia.com - a collection of advanced stats for the PBA that uses up-to-date totals and formulas from both NBA.com/Stats and Basketball Reference, as well as other independent hoops websites.)
1. Pushing the tempo
Terrafirma appears to have placed more premium on picking up the pace to generate more possessions. Pushing the ball faster haven't always resulted in immediate fastbreak points, but frequently attacking a backpedaling defense that scrambled (and often failed) to get into position has helped the Dyip get more chances at the offensive end.
To Terrafirma's benefit, San Miguel (24) and Ginebra (19) coughed up a ton of turnovers, helping the Dyip get what they wanted on offense even faster. Blackwater took care of the ball better (14) and kept Terrafirma from scoring a lot in transition, but the effects of pushing the tempo against a league-worst Bossing defense still paid dividends.
2. Matt Ganuelas-Rosser
Smart teams should call Terrafirma to try and pry away the 31-year-old forward via trade, but the Dyip should hang up immediately if they're actually serious about trying to compete.
In their win run, Ganuelas-Rosser averaged 7.7 points on 62.5 percent shooting, 3.7 assists, 3.3 rebounds, 2.0 steals, and just 1.3 turnovers in under 25 minutes, showcasing a level of stability in passing and defense that makes up for his glaring lack of consistent self-creation on offense.
No Dyip player pushed the pace as often and as diligently as the Filipino-American wing did during that stretch. He still made great reads in the halfcourt, but a lot of his passes came as a result of his penchant for running in the open floor and craftily finding his teammates. (He likes lookaway passes a lot.)
Ganuelas-Rosser also has a good two-man game going with Tiongson, who could certainly benefit from ghosting more screens or doing more dribble hand-offs with the forward to make the offense a little more unpredictable (see 0:53 onwards of the clip above).
The defense is just as noteworthy, as a lot of his stops came during crucial junctures, triggering backbreaking runs and snuffing out momentum-turning shifts from opposing teams.
3. Some semblance of a modern offense
The execution wasn't always clean and well-timed, but Terrafirma frequently spammed Spain pick-and-rolls, executed a lot of screen-the-screener actions, and sprinkled in elevator screens to get off clean looks. For the uninitiated:
- A "Spain" is a pick-and-roll followed by a back screen for the player who set the ball screen. It's a play that last season's Phoenix Suns - Chris Paul, Devin Booker, and Deandre Ayton, most of all - frequently utilized to great success throughout a run that culminated in a Finals appearance.
- An elevator action, meanwhile, involves a cutter going through pin-down screens by two teammates, who then "close the door" to free the cutter from his defender.
The Dyip combined that sort of creativity with lineups that had good spacing - particularly in the comeback win against SMB, where they fielded a lineup of Tiongson, Rashawn McCarthy, Andreas Cahilig, Aldrech Ramos, and Eric Camson in the final 4:53 to turn a 10-point deficit into a 95-draw at the end of regulation. (Ramos was replaced by Joseph Gabayni with 1:38 remaining, but there was hardly any drop-off in spacing.)
Start at the 13-second mark of the clip above to see the results. Terrafirma played with a lot of space, ran two Spain pick-and-rolls under the last three minutes, and executed a screen-the-screener action to get Tiongson open for the game-tying jumper. The Dyip ran more of these after the upset; the frequency and success varied, but they did result in more wins -and there's no doubt they'd continue to benefit if they continue heading in this direction going forward.
4. The other guys
Blackwater looked like it was about to pull the rug from underneath Terrafirma in the first half, when a box-and-one defense - a high school defense famously thrown at Stephen Curry in the 2019 NBA Finals - contained Tiongson and stifled the Dyip offense. The 30-year-old guard was scoreless on two shots, and Terrafirma (34.1 percent) committed 11 of its 14 turnovers during that stretch.
Fortunately, the Dyip's supporting cast continued stepping up.
- Ramos (15 points on 62 percent shooting, including 60 percent on 3s, 7.3 rebounds, and 1.7 assists in those three wins) spaced the floor tremendously and hit timely shots whenever defenders collapsed the paint (see the first 27 seconds of the clip above).
- Camson (10.7 points on 47.8 percent shooting, 10.3 rebounds) keyed a strong second quarter vs. the Gin Kings and took defenses by surprise when he put the ball on the floor (see 0:28 to 1:20 of clip above).
- Cahilig (8.7 points on 33.3 percent shooting from deep, 9.0 rebounds, 2.3 assist) had game-high plus-minus ratings against Ginebra and Blackwater, continued to be a good weakside defender, provided decent spacing, and simply gave the Dyip more possessions thanks to sheer hustle (see 1:20 to 1:44 of clip above).
- McCarthy, albeit inconsistent with his shot, hit a couple of big ones in crucial stretches against SMB and Blackwater and remains a good secondary playmaker; Gabayni, meanwhile, was active on the glass, and 10 of his 15 rebounds against the Beermen came on offense.
- Reden Celda was a wildcard; after recording two DNPs and playing under 15 minutes a game in the first four games, he broke out vs. Blackwater by putting up 15 points (4/10 FGs, 3/5 FGs), six rebounds, four assists, two steals, and block in 27 minutes while punishing the Bossing when they showed or hedged pick-and-rolls in the fourth quarter.
5. Tiongson, of course
Tiongson (23 points on 43.3 percent shooting, including 50 percent on 3s, 5.3 assists, 3.0 rebounds, 2.0 steals, and just 1.0 turnovers in those three wins) ran the show for the most part and definitely deserves a lot of praise for the way he has handled himself through this run.
Against an SMB defense that wasn't too precise with the way they defended him, the former Ateneo guard's shot selection and reads were commendable, and he also made the Beermen pay by sneaking through crevices when he didn't have the ball:
Ginebra started off by hedging Tiongson in pick-and-rolls and mixed it up later on by showing and blitzing, but he showed composure nonetheless and remained lethal off screens, off the ball, and against defensive breakdowns:
Tiongson cooled off against Blackwater's box-and-one defense, but he wasn't rattled (0 turnovers) and made great passes off of floppy and other ball screen actions even after the Bossing switched up their coverage by blitzing and hedging:
The Terrafirma playmaker's offensive load percentage - a measure of a player's involvement in his team's offense - ranks seventh in the league right now, which means he has used possessions as frequently as today's top stars. So far, he has produced with a blend of scoring and playmaking that'd certainly earn him the respect of opposing defenses on a nightly basis.
Whether or not all these are sustainable remains to be seen - the overall defense remains a big question mark, and the lack of top-shelf talent is still an issue - but Terrafirma has to be happy about the short-term results.
All these just prove the Dyip could be competitive; it's really only a matter of deciding whether they want to be or not.