Ill-fated Gilas blows 11-point Asiad mission

THE PHILIPPINES’ Gabe Norwood takes it strong to the basket off Kazakhstan’s Anatoliy Kolesnikov (left) in Sunday’s game at Hwaseong Gymnasium in Incheon. NIÑO JESUS ORBETA

INCHEON, South Korea—The door was finally shut on Gilas Pilipinas.

The Philippines turned back Kazakhstan, 67-65, Sunday afternoon at Hwaseong Gymnasium here but failed to collect enough points for a victory margin that could have sent Gilas to the semifinals of the men’s basketball tournament of the 17th Asian Games here.

The Philippines needed to win by at least 11 points to prevail via the quotient system in a projected tie for second at 1-2 among Gilas, Kazakhstan and Qatar, which was expected to loss to South Korea in the second game.

“We knew what we had to do at the start of the game,” said national coach Chot Reyes.

The last time that Gilas hovered above the quotient line, however, was when Marcus Douthit—his disciplinary freezing thawed by a players’ meeting the evening after the losing game against Korea—made a basket that gave the Philippines a 67-56 lead with 2:12 left in the game.

“We called a timeout [earlier] and said we had to step on the gas,” Reyes said. But as in a previous meltdown against host Korea on Saturday, the Filipinos—who at one point even led by 18—couldn’t latch on to the margin.

The moment Dmirtriy Gavrilov and Pavel Ilin moved Kazakhstan to within four of Gilas’ lead with 47 seconds remaining, it was clear that the Filipinos had reached the point where they would have to resort to desperate measures.

And they did.

After Kazakhstan moved within two points, Reyes huddled the players for a consensus: If they were allowed to shoot at the opponent’s basket, would they have “the balls to do it?”

“When we asked one of the referees if the basket would count if we did it, he said yes, so we did it,” said Reyes.

Douthit received the inbounds pass and softly laid the ball into the Kazakhstan ring. But the referees did not count the basket and charged a turnover to Gilas. The Filipinos tried one last ploy by fouling Anatoliy Kolesnikov, but he intentionally missed the accompanying charities to seal the game.

“When we [shot at Kazakhstan’s basket], another referee stepped in and said it wasn’t allowed. We called a timeout, they discussed it among themselves and they nullified the shot.”

Had the shot counted, Gilas would have earned a five-minute reprieve in overtime of its win-by-11 approach to the game. Reyes admitted there were sportsmanship qualms about the approach.

“Unfortunately, we had to do something like that to survive,” he said.

According to Fiba rules, the only shots that would count when made by an opponent are inadvertent ones. But it certainly did not have to reach that point.

When Gabe Norwood beat the shotclock buzzer with a triple and Ranidel de Ocampo completed a three-point play, Gilas erected a 50-32 lead with 2:55 left in the third period.

And even when Kazakhstan rallied to end the period, Jimmy Alapag opened the fourth with a triple, 55-39.

But Ilin buried back-to-back triples and Gavrilov added another as the Kazakhs began chipping away at the Gilas cushion.

The Nationals still kept the semifinal stint in sight until the final two minutes, but suddenly went cold from there, missing four straight attempts, including three-point shots by LA Tenorio and Jeff Chan.

“They did a good job on our shooters,” said Reyes of the Kazakhs. “We played good defense but our shooters weren’t making shots that they made [against Korea].”

Despite a slow start—the Philippines only made five of its first 17 attempts—Gilas jumped to big leads in the first half. Gary David hit the first two shots of the second period and Japeth Aguilar had a highlight slam that gave the team a 32-18 lead.

The scores:

GILAS PILIPINAS 67—Douthit 18, Alapag 11, Tenorio 8, David 7, Dillinger 6, De Ocampo 5, Norwood 5, Chan 0, Fajardo 0, Lee 0.

KAZAKHSTAN 65—Ilin 21, Kolesnikov 15, Gavrilov 12, Murzagaliyev 10, Klimov 4, Pomonarev 2, Sulatanov 1, Lapchenko 0, Savchenko 0.

Quarters: 14-8, 35-21, 52-39, 67-65