Gilas pummel Thailand once again to get solo lead in Group A

The Philippines showed why they are the best team in Southeast Asian basketball, firing in from all cylinders to post a dominating 93-69 rout of Thailand to sweep their second window assignments in the 2021 FIBA Asia Cup qualifiers in Manama, Bahrain Monday evening.

With a dominating display, the youthful Gilas flexed their muscle against the more experienced Thais in a wire-to-wire win that gave them the outright lead in Group A with a perfect 3-0 card, one win better than idle South Korea who opted to skip the window owing to the coronavirus pandemic.

Shooting lights out from the field with a 45% clip, coach Jong Uichico’s men have let it rain from beyond the arc by hitting 16 triples in the entire game but they were let down by their free throw shooting in which they only scored half of the 18 attempts.

Their 32-point beatdown last Friday was somewhat a concern for the fabled mentor, as they responded to his calls on playing on their own pace.

”We were concerned that they might take the game for granted. So we really harped on executing the offense and playing better defense,” he said after the game.

Uichico had inserted Calvin Oftana and Jaydee Tungcab to replace the Ateneo duo of Will Navarro and Matt Nieto for this game, with only the NCAA MVP on the box scores by firing all of his nine points in the second quarter, all of them from beyond the arc.

But what was made more astounding was the domination of Gilas’ second unit, where they laid a big fat egg on Thailand while firing 53 of their own with the Gomez De Liano twins leading them in scoring, a proof of the depth displayed with their 14-man active roster.

Javi scored a near-perfect game, only missing once from inside and was clean from the rainbow territory to score 19 points in almost 16 minutes of action, while Juan added 14.

Completing the double-dight scorers for the Philippines is Dwight Ramos who had 13, and Matt Nieto who had a dozen despite spraining his ankle late in the third frame.

Slotman Chanatip Jakwaran carried Thailand heavily, scoring his career best 34 points but he had to play for more than 36 minutes to earn it, with guard Wattana Suttisin the only other Thai cager in double figures with 13.

Despite the bench shutout, Thailand had better inside scoring and had had more second chance points and off the Gilas turnovers. But that was not enough to drop them down at the bottom of the group, losing their fourth in as many games, including their fourteen-point defeat to Indonesia the day after their first Gilas outing.

Gilas practically ended the game right from the opening tip when they opened the game with eleven unanswered points en route to a slim eight-point cushion at the end of the first period.

It was pedestrian from then onwards, as they fired a series of runs as to pad their lead to its biggest at 28, 82-58 on Javi’s four point play with 8:23 remaining.

The scores:

Philippines 93 – Javi Gomez De Liano 19, Juan Gomez De Liano 14, Ramos 13, Nieto 12, Go 9, Oftana 9, Ildefonso 5, Paras 4, Suerte 4, Baltazar 2, Carino 2, Tungcab 0

Thailand 69 – Jakwaran 34, Suttisin 13, Muangboon 9, Jaisanuk 8, Chungyampin 5, Ghogar 0, Lakhan 0, Wongsawangtham 0, Klaewnarong 0, Langsui 0

Quarter scores: 27-19, 53-34, 75-52, 93-69
PHOTOS: FIBA