Gilas Pilipinas Basketball

Gilas Pilipinas continued its unbeaten romp in the 2017 SEABA Championships in Manila, Philippines after a 106-51 trashing of Malaysia on Sunday, May 14 at the Smart-Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City.

Andray Blatche played his best game of the tournament so far, scoring 13 points while adding eight rebounds and five assists. Troy Rosario also had 13 points on 6-of-9 shooting.

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Terrence Romeo and Matthew Wright each added 12 points. Romeo also dished out seven assists. Gilas shot 44 percent from three-point area and assisted 23 of 35 field goal makes.

No player logged more than 20 minutes for Gilas in another balanced effort from start to finish.

Malaysia’s Teo Kok Hou scored the first two points of the game on a driving lay-up, marking the first time Gilas trailed all-tournament long. But after that, Gilas went on to pour 13 unanswered points to take control.

Japeth Aguilar stole the show in the first quarter with his electrifying slam dunks, including one in a sequence where Jio Jalalon saved the ball, while Romeo lobbed it for Aguilar to throw down.

Gilas led 36-17 after the first quarter and then tightened on the defensive end, allowing only 18 points for Malaysia in the next two quarters.

“Defensively, we had to continue being aggressive, continue being patient because we knew they were going to hold the ball on us. That’s essentially what they tried to do the whole game, they tried to keep the score low and kept attacking around the 10 or 8-second mark of the shot clock,” Gilas head coach Chot Reyes said.

“It was key for us to be patient and disciplined with our defense.”

Malaysia was limited to just three field goal conversions in the second period which allowed Gilas to pad their lead.

Free throws by Calvin Abueva in the fourth quarter allowed Gilas to reach the century mark anew, 100-44 with under four minutes left in regulation.

The Philippines will take Monday off before returning to action on Tuesday, May 16 against Thailand.

Thailand is currently 2-1 in the tournament after a heartbreaking 60-59 loss to Indonesia and Reyes said his team will make the most out of the break to prepare for their next assignment.

“Thailand, we took at their game today against Indonesia. We know how good a team Thailand is. Fortunately we have tomorrow off so we will use it to get feedback on the last three games and get is prepared for Thailand as well,” he said.

Written by Levi Verora Jr
Photos by Glenn Michael Tan

The Scores:
Philippines – Blatche 13, Rosario 13, Romeo 12, Wright 12, Castro 10, Pogoy 10, Abueva 9, Aguilar 7, Maliksi 7, Almazan 6, Fajardo 5, Jalalon 2.

Malaysia – Heng 12, Ting 10, Liaw 8, Chin 6, Teo 5, Ang 5, Mak 2, Choong 1, Choo 1, Chan 1, Liew 0, Ong 0.

Quarterscores: 36-17, 61-26, 88-35, 106-51.