GILAS WINS BUT FALLS SHORT OF SEMIS SPOT
Gilas Pilipinas won the battle but lost the war.
The national quintet dominated Kazakhstan but settled for a 67-65 victory Sunday that was not enough to carry them to the medal round of the 17th Asian Games men’s basketball competition in Incheon, Korea.
Needing an 11-point winning margin to get a shot at the Final Four, the Nationals gutted it out and led by as many as 18 at 50-32 only to, yet again, crumble at the finish.
They were still leading by 11 at 67-56 with under two minutes left to play but failed to score a single basket the rest of the way.
A victory by Korea over Qatar later in the day would forge a three-way tie among the Qataris, the Filipinos and the Kazakhs at second in their group at 1-2. In that scenario, Gilas would end up fourth with the most inferior quotient.
A win by Qatar over Korea would make the Qataris the top seed in the group on a win-over-the-other rule versus the Koreans. In this case, Team PHL would finish third in the group also via the win-over-the-other rule versus Kazakhstan.
“We had to win by 11. As usual we fizzled out again in the end. We didn’t have enough gas to finish strong. We won but we really lost,” rued Gilas coach Chot Reyes.
“We are now out of contention for a medal. And that’s the story of this ball game,” Reyes also said.
In an effort to have another chance at beating Kazakhstan by 11, the Filipinos gave away precious points with Marcus Douthit even attempting to make a basket in the Kazakh goal in the closing seconds.
“Unfortunately we had to do something like that coz we had to survive,” said Reyes on their funny ploy which is not allowed under the FIBA rules.
Douthit came through with 18 points, 14 rebounds and three blocks as he was reinstated after being benched by Reyes against South Korea following a so-so game against Qatar.
“We had a team meeting and Marcus reiterated his apology and said he’s ready to play. The players asked me to allow him to play,” said Reyes.
Douthit put in his share as the Nationals led from start to finish in nailing a second win in five games in the tourney.
“Coming in I had very modest individual expectations. We had six days to practice with Marcus. We lost Dray (Blatche) and Jayson (Castro),” Reyes said. (SB)
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