By The Numbers: Gilas Delivers Qatar’s First Loss

Gilas Pilipinas took care of business and handed Qatar their first loss in the tournament. They also brought life to the possibility of making the top seed in Group E. Let’s take a peak into the stat sheet and see how they did it.

Allow me skip past that so-so first quarter and head on to the minutes that mattered. Here’s all you need to know about the first:

1) We started out okay and led by 9. Then Qatar would go on a 9-0 spurt. The quarter ended with both teams tied at 20.

2) Kuya Marcus was aggresive to start. 6 pts, 3/5 FGs.

3) Marc Pingris seemed really lost and hesitant. 0/2 FGs, 2 turnovers.

4) Jeff Chan continued to wax. 6 pts, 2/2 3-FGs.

Okay, now to the 2nd stanza. Here lies the story of the game and how it blew open.

This second was the (are you ready?) Japeth Aguilar show! Wow, I never thought that could be actually mean something positive. But mad props to Japeth. He’s really been amazing in this tournament. Maybe he’s really made for a stage bigger than the PBA? Who knows? He’s found out how to properly use his gifts of height and athleticism in this international scene. I don’t mind him trying to throw down a jam everytime he touches the leather. That’s what he does best. Besides, we’d rather have him do that than shoot from the perimeter.

How about our squad’s defense? Led by who? Mr. Gabriel Norwood. Again and again and again and again. Jarvis Hayes entered the 2nd round of eliminations as the scoring leader of the tournament dropping 22.5 a game. And to hold him scoreless in an entire quarter where he player close to 8 minutes is a feat. Qatar, as a whole, took 18 shots and made only 2.

We also showed persistence in getting to the boards this time. By halftime, we would have already grabbed 28 rebounds. Against Japan, who has a slightly smaller frontcourt compared to Qatar, we only had 29 boards for the entire game.

Gilas went back to dugout with a 47-29 lead.

I was extremely excited for the third period. We already led by 18 at the half. My thoughts were that if our third quarter would promise the same as it has been throughout the tourney, the lead would balloon to about 30 or 40 entering the 4th. Unfortunately, it was far from our previous performances.

Oh we did win the quarter. But like I said, it was far from expectations. Nonetheless, we gotta be thankful Qatar didn’t exactly play well either. We turned the ball over twice as much as they did but they failed to capitalize. Like most fan analyses suggested, we pounded the ball inside to Daddy Douthit. And he imposed himself.

Although at about halfway into the 3rd, we saw the most horrifying scene in the tourney so far. Kuya Marcus was down; he was for a good 3 minutes. Fortunately, it wasn’t the knee injury that it initially looked like. He was definitely hurt but he said it was nothing serious.

While he was out, Qatar would make a run. And we tried to stop it by our run-silencing trey bombs. Oddly, though, this time they wouldn’t fall.

We entered the fourth with a 19 point lead, 63-44.

The fourth and final quarter. Always the waterloo. This time, again it was.

Qatar started hitting their shots. As if the timing couldn’t have been worse, we began to miss ours. Four attempts from rainbow, nothing fell. They dominated us in almost every statistical category. With a 10-0 rally, suddenly Qatar was within single digits.

The good thing was we built a thick enough cushion early on to withstand a late-game Qatar climb. Jarvis Hayes tried to carry his team on his shoulders but just couldn’t do enough. He had a chance to cut the lead to 7 in the last minute or so. But he missed two charities.

Again, we weathered a 4th quarter storm and came out on top. And while this is something to be proud of, this is also a point of concern especially with the knockout rounds getting nearer. Now, Coach Chot’s words are really starting to make sense. By the next round, we really could be one quarter away from a frightful (gulp) elimination.

Final numbers to the Gilas Pilipinas-Qatar game were these:

The numbers don’t lie. Defense won us this game. I guess it’s true what they say – you can have an off-night on offense but there’s no such thing when it comes to defense.

Marcus Douthit was a force to reckon with. He played like the guy who’s listed as ‘a player to watch out for in the FIBA Asia’. And with the explosion of Japeth, it gave us additional firepower inside. That’s something that should be useful against teams like Iran, China and Korea.

Okay, this is probably already due. I just wanna give a quick shoutout to Mr. Japeth Aguilar.

Japeth, I know I’ve bashed you more than once before. I’m not exactly sorry. I know that you’ve been feeding off of all the negative things we all say about you. Now, you’ve swayed me. You give something that is indispensable to the team. And you deserve to be there. Keep on rattling ‘em rims! Good job, man.

With that out of the way, let’s proceed. If there should be any concern on the stats, I guess it’s the three-point shooting in the 2nd half. Our dialing from distance has been one of our primary weapons in the tournament. We’ve built most of our leads with Jeff Chan, Larry Fonacier and Ranidel de Ocampo sniping away. But against Qatar, they stopped falling. I personally don’t think we’ve juiced it dry yet. Meron pa yan, believe me.

Honestly speaking, Hong Kong shouldn’t be much of problem for us. And whoever’s gonna be our quarterfinals match-up is out of our hands already.

Right now, I don’t see anything to worry or get anxious about.

Tiwala lang, guys. Laban lang.

photo c/o Yahoo! Philippines

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