Gilas Pilipinas Basketball

Gilas Pilipinas wasted no time in sending a statement to the rest of the competition after annihilating the world no. 92 Myanmar by a whopping 107 points, 147-40 on Friday, May 12 in the 2017 SEABA Championships at the Smart-Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City, Philippines.

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Roger Pogoy dropped 11 points in the first quarter alone including three coming from the outside. Gilas was unforgiving with their defense and raced to a 17-0 start.

Eventually, head coach Chot Reyes emptied his bench early, with Jio Jalalon, Troy Rosario, and Calvin Abueva all scoring eight points or more before the halftime buzzer.

Gilas took a 66-12 lead entering the intermission, and reached the century mark with over a minute left in the third quarter with fans inside the Big Dome already aware of how the game would end, even cheering everytime Myanmar scores a field goal.

“I know there is a lot of talk around this game and around this campaign, but we just talked about in our pre-game that we just need to, not worry about all the (external) things and just be worried about what we need to do to get the job done,” Reyes said.

Pogoy’s fastbreak lay-up with under three minutes left in regulation pushed Gilas’ advantage up to a hundred, 140-40, much to the delight of hometown fans.

It is the biggest winning margin of Gilas in recent memory since the cadets blasted Timor Leste, 126-21 in the 2015 Southeast Asian Games.

“I told the players, a lot of times in international competition, tayo yung dehado, it is very rare we come into a game na tayo ang llamado. So could we play with the same kind of intensity and effort even when you are the favored team? I think that was the question we posed before the game,” Reyes added.

Abueva paced nine double-digit scorers for the national team with 22 points on 10-of-15 shooting, six rebounds, four rebounds, five steals and a block. Allein Maliksi chipped in 20 points, Pogoy had 17, while June Mar Fajardo scored 14 points on a perfect 7-of-7 field goal clip.

Gilas was masterful with their performance, shooting 64 percent overall, assisting 45 of 63 field goal makes, and tallying 25 steals and 12 blocks.

They scored 54 points from 38 Myanmar turnovers, and scored 100 points in the paint on 83 percent shooting.

“As far as we are concerned, we want to be coming out there and playing the game the right way. We want to win games because we are the harder working team and the team that plays together. Those are the things for us,” Reyes said.

Gilas will take on Singapore, which lost to Indonesia in their first game, 71-50, tomorrow, May 13.

Written by Levi Verora Jr
Photos by Glenn Michael Tan

The scores:
Philippines – Abueva 22, Maliksi 20, Pogoy 17, Fajardo 14, Jalalon 13, Rosario 13, Wright 12, Aguilar 11, Blatche 11, Romeo 6, Almazan 6, Castro 2.

Myanmar – Wana 12, Aung M. P. 8, Zaya 6, Aung P. W. 3, Tin 3, Kaung 2, Sei Thu 2, Thant 2, Sai 2, Wai 0, Thein T. D. 0, Thein H. 0.

Quarterscores: 32-7, 66-12, 110-29, 147-40.