The night of the opening dinner of the 27th Fiba Asia tournament, national team coach Chot Reyes handed players a scrapbook of sorts about the 1973 Philippine team, the last squad to rule the Asian championship. Manny V. Pangilinan, the business tycoon who heads the country’s basketball federation, stood before the Gilas Pilipinas squad and gave a little speech.
“We told them: ‘You’re at the cusp of history. We want you to be able to tell your children and grandchildren that you brought this country to Spain, that you were one of the top 24 countries in the world,’” Pangilinan recalled.
For the 12 players, the coaching staff, the supporters, and the fans of Gilas Pilipinas, Day One of the 2013 Fiba Asia Championship marked the official start of the march to history, the beginning of the journey back to international basketball relevance—back to the world stage of the country’s favorite sport.
The air was still heavy with residue shock over South Korea’s 63-59 win over a cold-shooting defending champion China when the scoreboard began counting down the minutes to the Philippines’ first appearance in the tournament. Already, there were occupied seats at the Mall of Asia Arena despite the game being about an hour away. This was the moment that Gilas Pilipinas was going to make a grand entrance in the tournament.
“We waited three and a half months to play before our countrymen. Obviously, there was a lot of excitement,” said point guard Jimmy Alapag.
Outside the arena, a queue had formed to the entrance. Fans who had come in groups were creating betting pools ranging from snack money to fare for the ride home. Not that anyone was betting on Saudi Arabia, the Philippines’ first hurdle on the road to the 2014 Fiba World Cup.
People were betting on the winning margin.
Almost out of reach: A persistent Saudi squad forces Gabe Norwood to scramble for the ball.
This was going to be huge. This game was going to be electric. In English, Gilas means elegance, gallantry. The team was going to project both. The Nationals were going to get off to a blazing start and create a wave of momentum it could ride on the way to—ideally—a sweep of the first preliminary round.
The arena was not as packed as was expected. But the crowd was pumped.
It cheered loudly as the players of Gilas Pilipinas were introduced. It stood with pride as the country’s National Anthem was played—even if very few people actually sung along. And when action got going with the opening tip, the crowd applauded loudly in anticipation of a cruise by the Nationals.
Once the game started, though, it became evident that history could have gotten off on a better foot.
Right in its first possession, Gilas Pilipinas nearly turned the ball over. Twice.
“Maybe we had the jitters,” said shooter Larry Fonacier, who eventually wound up with 12 points for the night.
Maybe.
The Nationals corrected themselves quickly after that fumbling start and finally got on track with eight straight points. Somewhere in the audience, someone’s bet was looking really good.
And yet, somehow, the team could not shake off Saudi Arabia. Aymam Almuwallad kept the visitors within striking distance in the first half. And the crowd, well, it just could not find something exciting to latch on to. The cheers slowly dissipated into respectful applause with every made basket. For a while, choreographed drumbeats from the nosebleed section were the only noise that the audience generated.
As the final seconds of the first half dripped away, the Filipinos tried to keep intact a nine-point bubble they had somehow erected and go into the halftime break on the wings of a solid defensive stop. Instead, Jeff Chan went for a risky challenge on Almuwallad’s three-point try and wound up fouling the 6-foot-2 guard, who averaged 15.2 points for Saudi Arabia during the tournament.
Almuwallad made 2-of-3 from the stripe and Gilas Pilipinas found itself with only a seven-point edge going into the last two quarters.
In the third quarter, Gilas Pilipinas finally managed to work up the crowd—although there were a lot more things that kept the audience cheering. Among them was the coliseum barker calling Talk ‘N Text guard Jayson Castro as Jayson William.
“I used Castro ever since my father left us,” said the cat-quick guard nicknamed “The Blur.” William, though, is the state-registered name of the son of a former US serviceman, thus it is the name that is listed on his passport and the name he had to wear on his jersey.
And every time the barker called out his name, the crowd would hoot with delight. Gilas Pilipinas helped sustain the cheering with Marcus Douthit anchoring a key run with two blocks and a slam and Ranidel de Ocampo capping a 9-0 burst that gave the Philippines a 44-32 edge.
But just as the fans had broken out of perfunctory rounds of applause, Saudi Arabia made another run and whittled the lead to three. And all of a sudden, the audience retreated to obligatory cheers.
It was that kind of a night for Gilas Pilipinas and its supporters. The team would make a run, the crowd would get excited and then the Filipinos would relax and the audience would tone down the volume. The last of these momentum tugs-of-war came in the fourth quarter when the Philippines rushed to a 66-50 cushion only to allow Saudi Arabia three open looks from beyond the arc that it converted.
“It was never supposed to be easy,” reasoned Fonacier. “We played a quality team.”
“We thought we had a relatively light assignment but it turned out to be a relatively hard assignment for the team. It turned out this Saudi Arabia team is really good,” said Manny V. Pangilinan, the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP) president.
Actually, it was supposed to be easy. Saudi Arabia’s only edge was the cloak of mystery that surrounded the team. None of the Gilas Pilipinas coaches really had a good look at the Saudis. But through two quarters, they did not exactly possess the type of quality that would have accounted for the fact that when the buzzer sounded, the dominant feeling of the night was relief.
The Philippines ended up hammering out a 78-66 victory, yes. But at least one person was keeping tabs on the winning margin—the fan who bet on the team winning by more than 20. Not only did he lose the bet but he would have likely noticed that the 12-point spread could have been easily covered by Saudi Arabia’s 13 missed free throws.
Certainly not the confidence boost Gilas Pilipinas hoped for.
“It’s an ugly win, but it’s still a win and we have to move on,” said Ranidel de Ocampo.
“The real battle is against Jordan,” head coach Chot Reyes told reporters inside the media room after the game. “Our objective is to keep getting better.”
Reyes wasn’t exactly bothered by the unconvincing win.
“I was very relaxed about it,” he said. “We weren’t there to win by 30 or 40. We weren’t there to show all our cards or please everyone’s hunger for blood. We wanted to manage minutes so everyone would be well rested for Jordan.”
Jordan was going to be the first key match for Gilas Pilipinas in the tournament. If there was ever a time for the team to show its full strength, it would be against Jordan.
Part 2, up Sept. 1, 11:00 pm, Manila time.
SERIES
Prelude: Marc Pingris, on the edge