With shooters firing blanks, Gilas Pilipinas succumbs to South Korea in Jones Cup
Taipei – With its outside guns jamming at the wrong time, in the wrong game, Gilas Pilipinas on Wednesday night couldn’t climb out of a deep hole it dug itself in and all but bowed out of the title chase in the Jones Cup Invitational.
A night after their championship aspirations got a much-needed shot-in-the-arm from a bitter rival, the Filipinos fired duds practically all night against South Korea and went down, 83-72 that left the Koreans as the only undefeated side at Taipei Peace Basketball Hall here.
“We shot, what, 1-for-65 from three-point range? You can’t beat a quality team like Korea by shooting that way,” coach Chot Reyes said, though there was very little trace of bitterness on his part after the Filipinos lost for the first time in the last four nights for 3-2 overall.
“I thought we played a terrific game. The effort that the players gave out was incredible,” he said. “And we held that (Korean) team to 83, a lot of them off free throws at garbage time.
“That would have been enough (for us to win),” he went on. “We just couldn’t make our shots.”
The exact shooting clip that Reyes was looking for was 1-for-26, with only Jio Jalalon making the long Philippine triple. “Had we made just four, we could have won that game.”
Jalalon finished with 18 points in just over 13 minutes of work, while Mike Myers had 18 and 17 rebounds despite going 8-for-15 from the free throw line.
Next up for the Filipinos is Iraq, and though the title could be well out of reach, Gilas is not expected to slow down one bit with the core of this team being whipped into fierce shape by Reyes for the Southeast Asian Games late next month.
Matthew Wright, after shooting at least 14 points in each of the last three victories for the Filipinos, went 0-for-7 from beyond the arc after making nine in the last two games. He finished with just four points, far from breaching twin digits.