In the 45-year history of the PBA, beginning with Toyota beating hated rival Crispa 3-1 for the 1975 First Conference crown up to last January's Governors' Cup series that saw Barangay Ginebra defeat Meralco 4-1, there have been a total of 129 championship series. We take a look back at the most memorable ones, five from each decade of the league's existence. Let's start with the 1970s.
The league's formative years already saw two franchises that were practically head and shoulders above the rest of the competition as the Crispa Redmanizers and the Toyota Comets locked horns for the first six finals series and would go on to battle four more times for PBA supremacy. Their wars were bruising; bordering on genuine hatred for each other-and their fans amplified this rivalry to the hilt.
Crispa and Toyota would also figure in some of the most controversial and most memorable duels for the crown. It is quite surprising that a film has not yet been produced to relive the brutal carnage that ensued when these storied teams crossed paths, let alone contested for a championship.
Let's relive five of the classic PBA Finals showdowns of the league's opening decade.
1975 Second Conference: Toyota vs. Crispa (Best of 5)
This was the second straight Toyota-Crispa finals and the Redmanizers were bent on payback. They signed youngsters Johnny Burks and Pete Crotty while Toyota kept Byron "Snake" Jones and paired him up with undersized center Stan "Sweet" Cherry. Both teams dominated the preliminary round and were once again going to battle for the championship.
Game 1 was so physical that by the fourth quarter came along Fernandez had suffered a broken nose from a hard hit from Crispa forward Rudy Soriano and had to be brought to the hospital, unable to finish the contest. The incident led to a bench-clearing brawl that saw Jaworski punch Soriano while the fans pelted the court with coins (which were huge and hard back then) in an all-out melee.
Jaworski and Soriano were both ejected and Toyota escaped with a 98-96 decision. But PBA Commissioner Leo Prieto suspended Jaworski and Soriano before Game 2 and later on turned down Toyota coach Dante Silverio's call for a postponement of the series as the Comets would be at a disadvantage without Fernandez and Jaworski.
Crispa blasted the Comets in Game 2, 101-91 behind 22 points apiece from Bogs Adornado and Atoy Co to tie the series.
Game 3 saw the return of not only Jaworski, but also Fernandez who wore a protective plastic cast over his newly operated nose but still dominated the first half despite his limited vision. Shooting guard Francis Arnaiz went off for 30 points as the Comets prevailed, 115-102, to put them a victory away of snaring back-to-back titles.
But then another development occurred.
After the contest, Crispa coach Baby Dalupan expressed his "disdain" towards the officiating and addressed Crew Chief Remigio Bartolome. Dalupan had to be restrained after airing his "frustrations". The Redmanizers were suspicious of why the PBA had followed the practice of choosing two referees from among the ranks of Bartolome, Feliciano Santarina and Eriberto "Ting" Cruz. Crispa supposedly wanted to include three other referees in the pool for the finals but their motion was denied.
To compound matters, the following day Prieto suspended Dalupan for Game 4 which led to Crispa "voluntarily conceding" Game 4 to Toyota and the Comets were declared Second Conference champions.
Crispa was fined by the league a whopping P50,000.00 for choosing to prematurely end the series.
Redmanizers team owner Danny Floro later wrote to Commissioner Prieto:
"Please, remember that I was given up to 5PM of even date (Nov. 21) to make known my final decision to refuse playing with Toyota, after proper consultations with our group. It appears that the board did not wait anymore for our final decision and unilaterally 'declared' Toyota winner of the fourth scheduled game.
"To reiterate my stand, we could not properly play said game with referees Santarina and Bartolome (possibly) officiating, and without our coach, Baby Dalupan, at the helm."
It was the only the second time in Philippine basketball history that a team won a title via forfeiture following YCO in the MICAA in the 1960s.
1975 Third Conference (All-Philippine): Crispa vs. Toyota (Best of 5)
The Comets were now poised to get their third consecutive championship to score a shutout in the PBA's maiden season when they blasted the opposition but at the same time, Crispa also had a stellar slate to arrange yet another encounter with their now bitter nemesis.
Only the top four teams from the previous conference were invited to participate in the season-ender, originally dubbed the "Challenge of Champions". All four teams had virtually the same rosters but this time it was the Redmanizers emerging as the top seed after sweeping the preliminary round.
The series went to a fifth and final game; the first time a championship series went the distance.
It was a tossup on who would prevail.
Both teams were devoid of any key injuries. Both teams' key characters were playing optimally. Neither team had been involved in any fisticuffs or any untoward incident leading up to the finale. Both teams were hungry for the championship for obviously different reasons.
Emotions were running high as the winner-take-all match-up ensued and the inevitable finally happened in the second quarter when Toyota reserve Oscar Rocha nailed a driving Soriano with a punch that emptied the benches for the first brawl of the series.
The crowd of about 40,000 bipartisan spectators also got into it and it took league officials quite some time before restoring order, resuming the game with the Redmanizers up 27-19.
Crispa built an 87-80 in the final canto lead but subsequently lost both their imports to fouls and with just a little over three minutes to go had to play with an all-local crew. That's when Toyota chipped away behind the heroics of Jaworski.
With 30 seconds left and the Redmanizers leading 94-91 with possession, Cezar drove hard against Fernandez and swung his elbow to protect the ball against his defender as he made the layup. The elbow hit Fernandez on the face, but the referees did not blow their whistles. Silverio protested vehemently that Cezar should have been called for an offensive foul.
Once again, players poured on to the court for a second melee but after the smoke had cleared, Silverio was disgusted with the alleged shady officiating and sent only four players back on to court for the final ticks.
The Redmanizers triumphed 96-91 to win their first ever PBA championship and the birth of perhaps the most heated rivalry in Philippine sports history was born.
1976 Third Conference (All-Philippine): Crispa vs. Toyota (Best of 5)
This time around, it was Crispa trying to go for a Grand Slam after prevailing in the previous two conferences 3-1 against Toyota (now known as the Tamaraws).
The Redmanizers-now reinforced by Louisville's Bill Bunton and 6'11" "Mann-Child" Cyrus Mann-were playing incredible basketball until the Second (Open) Conference when they lost Adornado for the rest of the season due a debilitating knee injury. This was when they developed a now blossoming Freddie Hubalde to add a different dimension to the Crispa offense.
Toyota, for its part, brought back Jones and acquired 6'5" University of San Francisco forward Howard Smith while also signing former Olympian Elias Tolentino and eventual Rookie of the Year Gil Cortez out of San Beda College to join an already formidable frontline starring Fernandez, Bauzon, and Segura.
The Tamaraws came into the series at full throttle and took the first two games 100-90 and staged a late rally after being down by five points in the final minutes to win, 118-117, overshadowing a career-high 41-point performance from Co.
The Redmanizers were now down 0-2 in the best-of-five series.
Co made a statement in Game 3-on the court-by coming away with another game-high showing of 34 markers as Crispa avoided the shutout via a 115-105 rout. The former Mapua standout led the Redmanizers to victory again with 25 points in Game 4 in a fight-marred 104-103 conquest.
All bets were suddenly off for the decider.
Co bombarded Toyota from all angles and could not even be hindered by the rugged Tamaraw defenders. Jaworski and Arnaiz were disqualified on fouls trying to play defense against "The Fortune Cookie".
In the end, Co erupted for another game-high 39 points and Crispa triumphed 110-92 for the league's first ever Grand Slam. Co would finish with an average of 31.8 points per game in the finals, a remarkable feat considering there was no three-point shot yet.
1977 PBA Invitationals: Toyota vs. Emtex Sacronels (Brazil)
Not all championship series sweeps are ho-hum. When the U/Tex Wranglers won their first title in the 1978 Open Conference (led by Jones and former Boston Celtic Glenn McDonald), it was via a 3-0 thrashing of the Redmanizers. The U/Tex win snapped a streak of ten consecutive conferences wherein either Crispa or Toyota emerged victorious.
But in the 1977 Invitationals, the Tamaraws cemented their place in PBA history by being the first team to not only defeat a foreign team to win a championship, but also show that a Filipino club team can go toe to toe against a world-class opponent that several national team players, among them a budding legend named Oscar Schmidt.
Brazil's Emtex Sacronels were one of two foreign squads brought in for the conference, joining Ramrod of Australia and six local squads in Toyota, U/Tex, the Tanduay ESQuires, the 7Up Uncolas, the Presto Ice Cream Makers and Crispa.
Emtex, known as the Palmeras, dropped only one assignment in the elimination round, a 133-128 nipper against Presto. But since the Ice Cream Makers were deemed to have fielded in a roster that did not have the same uniforms, the league decided to award the win to the Brazilians which ended up as the top seeds in the Finals with a 7-0 record.
Toyota, for their part, advanced by losing to only the foreign teams.
The Palmeras had four national team players on their squad - Milton "Carioca" Setrini, Gilson Trinidade de Jesus, Bira Maciel and a 19-year-old Schmidt.
The Tamaraws were reinforced by 6'8" Bruce "Sky" King and "Dr.I" John Irving-two of the more prolific imports in the competition.
But Game 1 belonged to Jaworski as he not only diffused Setrini but also led Toyota's offensive barrage with 26 points in a 115-99 shellacking of the erstwhile unbeaten Brazilians.
Game 2 saw Irving go off for 30 makers in a close 113-108 win while King would join forces with Irving in Game 3 to put Emtex away for good by combining for 64 points in 129-108 clincher.
Jaworski's performance in the season-ender catapulted him past Co and Arnaiz in the MVP race and showed that he could hold his own against world-class competition.
1979 Open Conference: Royal Tru Orange vs. Toyota (Best of 5)
The 1979 Open Conference saw the quality of imports come in improve tremendously with newcomer Gilbey's Gin parading an impressive duo of Larry McNeil and Dean Tolson, U/Tex bringing back McDonald to work alongside George Trapp while the ever reliable Cyrus Mann and Bruce "Sky" King were back in harness with Crispa and Toyota, respectively.
Royal Tru Orange (RTO)-whose cornerstones included former Olympians Rosalio "Yoyong" Martirez and Marte Samson-were hoping for a good finish under sophomore coach Ed Ocampo and American reinforcements Otto Moore and Larry Pounds.
The Orangemen topped the elimination round with a 13-3 win-loss slate. Powerhouses Toyota (12-4) and Crispa (11-5) suddenly did not have a guaranteed ride to the Finals.
Pounds went on to average a league-best 44.4 points while Moore was a defensive presence in the lane, limiting opponent's driving attempts with his imposing 6'11" hulking figure and expansive wingspan.
The Orangemen shocked the league by taking the first two games of the series against the Tamaraws, 104-99 and 100-95 behind Pounds' amazing scoring prowess.
Toyota would get back into the series by winning Game 3 but the classic end to Game 4 was what put this series in our list.
Pounds went ballistic as he scored 51 points in the contest. Not even King and newly acquired Andrew Fields could keep Pounds in check. The Tamaraws were ahead, though, 101-100 with possession with RTO. It looked like Toyota was poised to force a decider at that point.
But then Moore drew the defense and spotted a streaking Pounds for the go-ahead layup with six seconds remaining.
Toyota still had a timeout to use but never used it. The lasting image of that game was Yoyong Martirez sneaking up from behind and stealing the ball from an unsuspecting Arnaiz with three seconds left to preserve the Orangemen's one-point win.
RTO triumphed 3-1 and became only the fourth franchise to win a PBA title. That was the first of what would eventually become an astonishing 27 championships for the franchise that would later be known as the San Miguel Beermen.