Heat fan shoots Spurs backer

BY RUBY P. SILUBRICO

GUIMARAS – They were pals until one of them shot the other over the National Basketball Association (NBA) championship game between the Miami Heat and San Antonio Spurs.

After watching the game on television on Monday in Brgy. Pandaraonan, Buenavista town, 32-year-old Gaudencion Galano, a Spurs fan, belittled the Miami Heat players for being “lousy.”

The comment irked his friend Emmanuel Ebro, 50, a Heat fan.

After a heated argument, Ebro shot Galano with a .38 revolver.

Galano is now confined at the Guimaras Provincial Hospital with wound on the right side of his body.

Police said the shooting happened around 2 p.m. while the two were binge drinking and exchanging opinion about the NBA championship won by challenger San Antonio Spurs over defender Miami Heat.

The suspect tried to escape after the shooting but the police caught up with him in a hot pursuit operation.

Ebro is now detained at the Nueva Valencia police station lockup cell.

The rivalry been Heat and Spurs was intense this year. San Antonio was on the verge of winning the championship last year but lost Games 6 and 7 in Miami, the former after blowing a five-point lead in the final 28 seconds. It was the Heat’s second straight title.

“We were so close last year,” Spurs guard Tony Parker said. “We wanted to redeem ourselves.”

Indeed, the Spurs did. It was spry enough to win its fifth title in 15 years, defeating the Miami Heat, 104-87 to win the finals four games to one this year.

“This title is the sweetest one,” said Parker.

But for Spurs fan Galano, it meant having to stay in the hospital and nursing a painful gunshot wound./PN