So Gilas Pilipinas lost all of their games in the group stages of the FIBA World Cup and in some ways, the results are okay, to say the least.
For starters, we weren’t routed. We lost by a total of 23 points when in 2019, we were lucky to lose by 30. I know this is like being the nicest devil in hell but basically, it’s better to lose the way we did than lose the way the other teams did.
Against Italy, I thought Chot Reyes did well, considering the play style we had. With that said, I believe this is the first time in the group stages that I switched channels out of frustration. In the Dominican Republic game, I was tweeting and messaging my friends on FB while drinking an alcoholic beverage and eating chips. In the Angola game, I was just drinking. And in the Italy game, I missed the first five minutes of the first quarter and was clicking away on the remote whenever Clarkson and Ramos would throw an ill-advised shot.
I really thought Jordan Clarkson bombed as Gilas's leader here. I can see that JC did everything he could but he forced a lot of shots. I am also iffy about the way Dwight Ramos made a couple of plays. Scottie Thompson barely saw action here and in some ways, I get it. In three games, Clarkson had 66 attempts and made just 24. Ramos had 28 and made just 11. Yes, Ramos is 40 percent from the outside but in the 2-point zone, he is just 38.5 percent. Clarkson is 47 percent from the 2-point area but has a bad 14.3 percent from the three-point area.
AJ Edu has a 75 percent field goal percentage clip in the past three games with a whopping 82 percent from the 2-point area and we’re not feeding the ball to him—Ditto for June Mar Fajardo who also has a 69 percent clip. Kai Sotto, who only gets roughly 10 minutes per game, is 80 percent from the field.
I don’t get why we didn’t give enough time for Kiefer Ravena and Rhenz Abando, especially during the Dominican Republic game. When the turnovers racked up and the shots were insanely forced, they had a true PG in Kiefer and they never used him in the second half. In the Italy game, Abando stepped up when the other players were bombing. Granted, some of his attempts were unsuccessful but he was the one who is clearly fearless in all of his court decisions.
I guess I still have to see how they’ll fare in the classification stage. In the last staging, we placed 32 out of 32. In 2019, we lost a total of 147 points. There is a chance that aside from Angola, we are going to battle China or whoever loses in Group B. Puerto Rico is going to battle China while South Sudan will face Serbia so the odds are stacked for the Wenyen Gabriel-led squad. As for China, I was so out of the Asian basketball loop that I didn’t know that Yi Jianlian had already retired. Kyle Anderson (Li Kaier) is the player to watch in China with Zhou Qi being the other player in their squad with NBA experience.