TAIPEI – The Gilas Pilipinas locker room was as normal as it could be early on Friday afternoon, as Carl Cruz and Christian Standhardinger apologized for their physical plays the game before and coach Chot Reyes dismissing everything as “no big deal.”
“It’s no big deal for us,” Reyes said a few minutes before giving Gilas Pilipinas final instructions for a critical Jones Cup Invitational clash with Atletas All Stars Lithuania at Taipei Peace Basketball Hall here.
“I think it was a learning experience for him,” Reyes said of Standhardinger, whom he ordered back to the locker room – in full view of the fans – with 4:55 left on Thursday night against Iraq. “He had to learn things the hard way.
“But,” he repeated. “It’s no big deal. We’re not even making a fuzz out of it.”
Reyes was willing to lose the game against Iraq after Cruz and Standhardinger were caught by game officials giving out cheap shots in obvious retaliation to physical plays earlier in the game.
The firebrand coach recalled both to the bench and never put them back in.
“I don’t like the extra stuff that my other guys did that’s why I took them out of the game,” Reyes had said on Thursday after an 84-75 win. “There’s a fine line between being tough and being downright dirty and that’s not us.
“That’s not Gilas basketball,” he said.
Cruz owned up to starting it all when he planted a forearm at the back of the head of Navid Khajehzadeh after biting into the 7-foot center’s fake under the basket.
The hit left Khajehzadeh on the floor for a while as referees tried to separate members of both teams for entangling further.
Standhardinger, after several plays, then gave out a cheap shot on Dhulfiqar Al-hchaimi while both teams were going back to their respective benches for a TV timeout. He was whistled for a second deliberate foul resulting in his ejection.