Current Gilas Pilipinas better than 2013 squad, says Taipei-A

JASON Castro gets away from Chinese Taipei-A’s Tseng Wen-ting for a layup. PAUL RYAN TAN

TAIPEI – Despite several holdouts by PBA superstars back home, Chinese Taipei-A believes that this Gilas Pilipinas squad seeing action in the 37^th Jones Cup is a “better team” than the one it beat in the 2013 Fiba Asia Championship in Manila.

Tseng Wen-Ting, the 7-foot, pony-tailed veteran who muffed three straight free throws in the stretch that helped doom the Taiwanese in a 69-77 loss on Sunday night, and coach Chou Chun-San both made the pronouncement.

And surprisingly enough, even with June Mar Fajardo electing to forego national team duties because of plantar fasciitis, Quincy Davis III, Taipei’s naturalized center, found the going “frustrating” in the battle inside the paint.

“This team is better (than the 2013 squad that finished second to Iran),” said Tseng through an interpreter. “The defense is tougher, so we were made to commit a lot of turnovers tonight.”

The Taiwanese were forced to 17 blunders for the night and to 31-for-68 shooting from the field in the match watched by a raucous crowd at Xinchuang gymnasium here.

“They had a lot of big guys (with a lot of fouls to give) out there,” Davis said after being held to just 12 points but with 13 rebounds in the game that the Philippines’ own naturalized player Andray Blatche missed.

“It was very frustrating trying to battle (the Filipino big men) out there,” he said.

The stats sheet told it all, as the Filipinos, behind the combined 17 boards of Filipino-Tongans Asi Taulava and Moala Tautuaa, lost narrowly in the rebounding battle, 43-47.

Calvin Abueva and Terrence Romeo were the heroes for the night after combining for 13 fourth quarter points and bringing the Filipinos back to life after a dismal third quarter.