How can Gilas Pilipinas lose and win at the same time?
WATCH THEIR GAME AGAINST GEORGIA!
Down 0 to 14 in the first quarter and then losing Kai Sotto with a Goga Bitadze knee in the second, Gilas battled a 20-point deficit to lose, 96 to 94.
However, Georgia dug their selves too deep even before the game started, as they lost to Latvia, 83 to 55. This meant they had to defeat Gilas by 19 points to keep their semifinal hopes alive.
But that was not the case.
With the lead down to zero, at 67-all at the end of the third quarter, Georgia suddenly demoralized.
Anyway, I know we all hate Chot Reyes, but Tim Cone spammed the dribble-drive move with Justin Brownlee, Chris Newsome, CJ Perez, and Dwight Ramos. This is the same thing Reyes ran with Jayson Castro, Terrence Romeo, and even Jimmy Alapag. Again, the difference between the two is that Reyes had a lot of drama during his stint while Cone let his basketball resume do the talking. When Cone combined what he learned from Reyes and his usual Ginebra shtick, what we saw was Pinoy basketball goodness.
And even if there is drama like having an 11-man lineup and an even tighter rotation, Cone can just do it without people getting angry at him. In some ways, I thought the commentary had little to no research about the Gilas “bench.” And then I realized this is the first in a long while that Gilas had a pronounced starting five after years of having an “all-star” lineup.
I like Chris Newsome. I hate his moniker. Who the hell said that he needs to go by “New-New?” However, we have seen his game transformed from SG/SF to PG/SG in Meralco and even during his stint in the Asian Games. Scottie Thompson is also a converted point guard when he got into Tim Cone’s system. Newsome worked on defense and transitioned to offense when needed. As mentioned, he did well doing the dribble-drive moves to the paint.
June Mar Fajardo and Kai Sotto are going to be problems in defense. You can’t expect both players to chase the enemies and go nuts from deep. With that said, Goga Bitadze was not acting when JMF elbowed him in the balls when he bumped the Orlando Magic player to get separation. Because even the European players are multipositioned now, this makes it easier for June Mar to just bust his moves on offense. Even Japeth Aguilar, Calvin Oftana, and Carl Tamayo came to play because they played physically on defense.
And Dwight Ramos. The dude is consistent as hell. He and Justin Brownlee are the team’s lifelines. However, because of Cone’s excellent coaching, the same can be said with Newsome, JMF, and Kai Sotto. I know Sotto had a bad game against Georgia but if he’s available and just out there to act like a threat, then it will make life hard on either Montenegro or Brazil.
And I don’t know what to think about facing Montenegro. Personally, I want either Brazil or Cameroon to make the playoffs, with Brazil taking the lead. I am a sure Gilas Pilipinas fan, but I am a huge Nikola Vucevic fan. HE IS MY FANTASY BASKETBALL MVP! But pride and country will always take a front seat for me. I can’t really trust our skills against the Africans or the South Americans. That Argentina bout was a decade ago, and while African countries have little to no NBA players, for some reason, we can’t properly match against them.
Anyway, Gilas Pilipinas is in the semifinals. I thought Tim Cone should have brought his main guns back a bit earlier, but I understand the idea of getting the second unit working, especially Tamayo, Kevin Quiambao, and Calvin Oftana. Perez and Japeth know their roles, but I feel Oftana needs a big game to at least work out his kinks. Anyway, the bench did well this time - with Tamayo finally getting out of his slump, Perez unleashing hell on the opponents, and Japeth cranking out his old unicorn vibes.
Let’s aim to win it all!!!!!!
