Matthew Wright. Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net
Without Andray Blatche to lean on, Gilas Pilipinas’ locals picked up the slack to cruise to a 55-point rout of Vietnam in the 2017 Seaba Championship on Wednesday.
One of those who stepped up was Matthew Wright, who delivered his best scoring game in the tournament with 19 points on a scintillating 5-of-7 shooting from beyond the arc.
The Fil-Canadian rookie owed his stellar shooting to his teammates Terrence Romeo and Jayson Castro.
“Those guys make my job so easy. Terrence and Jayson found me, they hit me in stride, hit me with momentum,” he said. “Having great passers like that makes my job so much easier. I can’t take all the credit for that. Those guys put me in a good position.”
Gilas has been unselfish on offense all-tournament long and against the Vietnamese the team dished out 27 assists on 41 made field goals.
Wright also believes that Gilas’ 107-52 blowout of Vietnam sent a strong message to the rest of the Southeast Asian region that the Philippines is still a cut above the rest even with just its locals in tow.
“I guess we did show that we don’t need to rely on a naturalized player and we’ll still dominate the tournament with just our locals,” he said.
Still, having Blatche on the rotation is another thing, and Wright thinks that Gilas should not take things for granted as it looks to close things out against Indonesia on Thursday.
“It’s gonna be a dogfight,” he said of Indonesia, which will be bannered by naturalized import Jamarr Johnson, Indonesian-American forward Arki Wisnu, and veteran playmaker Mario Wuysang.
“I know Jamarr Johnson is going to be ready to play. This will be his second game, so he’ll definitely beat us with is motor. But we’re hitting our stride lately. Everybody has confidence on our team and we’ll do what we’ve been doing for the past week.”