Tall, talented Lithuania too much to handle for Gilas

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/JIM CHOU

TAIPEI – Getting a taste of Europe in the Jones Cup Invitational on Friday afternoon, Gilas Pilipinas played hard and gave it all it had and earned a consolation by making hulking Atletas All Stars Lithuania work hard for the win.

“In my mind, this is the best team here,” Gilas coach Chot Reyes said with pride, moments after the Filipinos dragged the Lithuanians into a running, physical game before bowing, 91-80 that put them out of the running for a podium finish at Taipei Peace Basketball Hall here.

“We battled and we battled them on even terms,” he said. “I am incredibly proud of our guys. We played a high-quality European team and I felt we gave them (Lithuanians) some concerns during the game. They had to come out and play really well (to beat us).”

“Save for a bad stretch in the second quarter, and had we gotten little breaks here and there, it could have been a lot closer.”

Not only did they have an enormous advantage in height and heft in every position on the Filipinos, the Lithuanians were deadly accurate from afar.

Gilas closed out the first quarter with a 22-17 lead, before the Lithuanians unloaded seven triples in the second period to gain control and keep Gilas within arm’s length the rest of the way.
The Filipinos dropped to 4-3, while Lithuania rose to 6-1, but could still end up losing the title to Canada 150, which beat them earlier.

Lithuania hit 14-for-36 from beyond the arc, taking 10 more three-point attempts than it did twos. Despite that, after missing just six of 26 attempts from two-point zone, the Lithuanians still finished with a 54% clip from the floor in total.

“That’s incredible,” Reyes said while talking to local reporters, astonished at his eagle-eyed foes.

Eigirdas Zukauskas, a sleek, 6-foot-8 power forward with the gift of putting the ball on the floor, finished with 22 points on 2-for-4 shooting from three-point range, 4-for-6 from two-point zone and 8-for-8 from the stripe. Four others finished in twin digits for Lithuania.

“He is the best player in the tournament, not just in the Lithuanian team,” Reyes saud of Zukauskas. “They are all a handful to any of our players. Some of them even play as imports in France and all over Europe.”

Kiefer Ravena started out at the point yet again and finished with 14 points and five assists, with import Mike Myers also having 14 and seven rebounds and Matthee Wright and RR Pogoy shooting 13 each.

Next up for Gilas is India at 1 p.m. on Saturday, and Reyes will continue to drive this squad with its core shooting to retain the Southeast Asian Games gold medal in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, late next month.