Janine Pontejos Makes FIBA 3x3 History for Philippines.

In the end, the best man left standing was a Filipina.

Yes, the smallest of the snipers, Janine Pontejos, stood tallest when the chips were down by scoring 14 points in 41.86 seconds to finally give them Philippines its first gold medal in the senior division* of the FIBA 3x3 tournament.

Here are three things that helped Pontejos win the shootout:

1) Homecourt advantage - There's nothing like playing at home and Pontejos definitely felt the love from the home crowd, which helped prop up her confidence.

Philippine Women's 3X3 Team: When Puso Isn't Enough But It Still Is.

Afril Bernardino. Jack Animam. Gemma Miranda. Janine Pontejos.

Remember those names. Today, they showed the fabled Pinoy "puso" on the court and made every Filipino proud.

This was a Filipina team that was lacking in a lot of things: height, experience, monetary support, an easy draw. But what they didn't lack was the determination of the Pinoy baller to overcome all those challenges.

The Significance Of Game Three

Game Three is going to be very important. So important that it will dictate whether Lebron James leaves the Cavs this summer or not.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think the Cavs will win the series. The Warriors are just too darned good. But if the Cavs can win Game 3, then they make the series respectable. Win Game Four and we'll have a proper series.

The Unfortunate Thing About Game One...

Do you know what's quite sad about Game 1 of the 2018 NBA Finals between the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers?

That its biggest talking point isn't Lebron James' singular dominance, scoring 51 points, grabbing 8 rebounds and 8 assists in an almost triple-double effort, while playing 48 minutes.

Cavs Vs. Warriors: Predicting the Sorta Predictable

So, here we are, exactly where we thought we'd be at the start of the season.

Here are some of my predictions for the series.

Game 1 Winner: Like Lebron said, Game 1 is about feeling things out. He's going to use Game 1 to try to gauge just how high he needs to go for them to win the series. Does he need to go Boston series-mode? Or just Raptors series-mode? Either way, don't expect 48minutes of hell from Lebron just yet.

Rockets Fall Back To Earth, Warriors March On

We always knew that Rockets needed to be near perfect to beat the Warriors. And when Chris Paul went down with that hamstring injury near the end of Game 5, that window for perfection just went from small to infinitesimal.

Add to that a flurry of unexpected areas of momentary incompetence that helped sink that (Rocket) ship, including: