The Big Difference!

Team Gilas has four heart breaking loss starting with an overtime defeat against Croatia, a come from behind win of Greece, Argentina and Puerto Rico. Gilas have managed to come up with only one victory against Senegal a team on the rise. Senegal is rank 41 in the world while Philippines rank 34.

For those who are not following the team Gilas, national team coach Chot Reyes’ strategy revolves around his point guard as he usually plays two guards and utilizes speed to compensate for his team’s lack of height.

In my previous article I mentioned that the run and gun game is good only if you play good defense and dominate the rebound, but you can’t blame Reyes for not giving Junmar Fajardo his playing time. It is the ‘run and gun’ style of basketball that made us qualify in the World Cup.

Team Gilas in its four losses has no end game, this due to the lack of size because our offense was very predictable, the opponent sends out its best defender to the perimeter to stop shooters like of Jimmy Alapag, L.A. Tenorio, Jeff Chan, Jayson Castro, Gabe Norwood and apply double team defense on Andray Blatche.

In the end game against Argentina, Blatche made two crucial errors– a blocked shot and a turnover due to the opponents stifling defense. Meanwhile against Greece, two of team Gilas three point attempts were blocked by Greek defenders during the end game, but this problem was solved against Senegal when Reyes finally decided to play Junmar ‘The Kraken’ Fajardo. Junmar’s presence gave Blatche, Alapag and Tenorio enough breathing room during that game.

The Cebuano center also gave them inside presence as the 6-foot-10 center grabbed offensive rebounds. Fajardo made an all-around performance with his 15 points, nine rebounds, two assist and two steals in his 32 minutes inside the court. A lot playing time was given to Fajardo, who only played a total of 32 minutes in the first four games. He certainly was “The Big Difference” in that game. Only if Junmar was given more playing time then I am 100% sure that we would be playing in the second round.

I baptized Junmar with a brand new monicker “The Big Difference,” the same monicker used by Caloy Loyzaga who is regarded as the greatest Filipino basketball player of his era. Loyzaga,  is the most dominant player in Philippine basketball from 1950s to the early 1960s.

There are lots of haters and believers in the social media and I am certainly one of the believers. I believe that Team Gilas would have a slim chance in the second round as I mentioned last week that height is still might! But I also pointed out key factors in order for Team Gilas to succeed like speed, outside shooting, defense and a healthy line-up.

The bigger picture now for Team GILAS is the upcoming Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea in which for me the Philippines is now favored to win the gold.

I hope we all learned our lesson in the recent FIBA World Cup and hopefully Reyes and the players would correct their mistakes. Height is still might, give Junmar his playing time and he will be “The Big Difference.”

Congratulations Team Gilas! I am very proud to say, Laban Pilipinas! Puso!