Gilas proudly defiant in Changsha
CHANGSHA, China — The road was strewn with thorns from the start, making the pathway to the 28th FIBA Asia Championships a virtual obstacle course for the Philippine national basketball team. But nobody from Gilas complained. Everyone knew it wouldn’t be easy sailing. The menu on the table listed hard work and sacrifice so what lay ahead was no surprise.
Despite daunting odds, coach Tab Baldwin assembled a band of 12 bravehearts with the mission to bring back the gold and a ticket to the 2016 Rio Olympics. Over nine days of combat, Gilas fought fiercely, like gladiators against a pack of wolves, in this Chinese city. In the end, the team returned home with the silver, scarred and wounded but unbowed. Gilas fell a win short of nailing a slot in Rio, the victim of a wildly hostile home crowd, below-par officiating and shooting lapses that could’ve been avoided with a longer training period, more consistency from the line and beyond the arc and a little more patience.
Surely, how Gilas performed in the tournament was an overachievement. The team had less than seven weeks to prepare. Baldwin’s wish list of players was shot to pieces when reigning PBA back-to-back MVP JuneMar Fajardo opted out with bilateral plantar fasciitis in both feet, Japeth Aguilar went down with a dislocated finger, Rain Or Shine allowed only one player to be drafted (the choice was Gabe Norwood, leaving out shoo-ins Paul Lee and Jeff Chan), L.A. Tenorio begged off to focus on his declining PBA career and Marcio Lassiter withdrew to console his cancer-stricken mother in the US. Ranidel de Ocampo couldn’t practice at the start to recover from injury, Andray Blatche skipped the Jones Cup to attend a relative’s funeral in Florida and Marc Pingris couldn’t break off from a family commitment to be with his father in France so it was difficult for Baldwin to generate early chemistry. The injury and personal issues, however, did not dampen Baldwin’s spirit. Baldwin had a job to do and, no matter what, set out for work with a hard hat on. Whether there was a conspiracy to make him fail or some kind of internal sabotage to foil his mission, Baldwin wouldn’t back down.
Gilas arrived here wary of an ambush somewhere along the way. The Chinese squad was billeted at the plush Kampinski Hotel while the other teams stayed at the Vaya International Hotel, a clear violation of a FIBA rule stipulating common quarters. From the start, there didn’t seem to be an effort to foster goodwill and camaraderie by the host country.
As it turned out, Gilas got off on the wrong foot, losing to tournament first-timer Palestine, 75-73, to open hostilities. Palestine came back from 16 down to wrest the lead with two minutes to go and scored the upset. Baldwin called it an aberration. Whatever it was, the loss was painful and put pressure on Gilas to sweep the rest of its games for a high seeding in the knockout quarterfinals. Like a wounded tiger, Gilas rebounded to win seven straight games, including a critical 87-73 victory over defending champion Iran in the second round of eliminations. The surge also included an 82-70 decision over Lebanon in the knockout quarterfinals and an 81-70 disposal of Japan in the semifinals.
It came down to the final between the Philippines and unbeaten China. The Changsha Social Work College Gym was packed to the rafters by rowdy partisans. Organizers appeared to tolerate wanton scalping of tickets. There were no box office outlets to go to. A ticket with a face value equivalent of P1,500 went for P11,000. The corruption was rampant. Assistant coach Norman Black almost didn’t make it into the venue and settled for an upper box seat. Hundreds of Filipinos were disenfranchised and turned away. About a hundred managed to find tickets but in the gym, they were shabbily treated. Gilas’ warm-up was disrupted when, out of the blue, maintenance men marched onto the court with a ladder to change the net of the goal, causing a delay of at least 10 minutes while the Chinese team raised a nice sweat on the other end. An accredited photographer screamed invectives at Calvin Abueva and almost engaged a Filipino photographer in a scuffle. Loud fans behind the Gilas bench tried to distract the players and even challenged mild-mannered J.C. Intal to a fistfight.
During the game, Gilas just couldn’t get a break. Norwood was struck thrice on the face and each was a let-go situation. Once, he was smacked, let go of the ball, fell on the floor and the referee whistled a turnover to award possession to China. On another occasion, Jayson Castro was on the dribble when he was called for traveling in motion. The referees were Marwan Egho of Lebanon, Arsen Andryushkin of Kazakhstan and Toru Katayose of Japan. Baldwin said the referees’ skill level was not in question but their approach to the game was highly irregular. If the bad calls were not deliberate, then maybe the referees were just influenced by the boisterous fans who were merciless in chastising Gilas.
Gilas’ defensive plan worked like a charm as Baldwin’s 2-3 zone took away China’s inside position to the extent that the Philippines had more points in the paint, 30-26. China’s three seven-footers Yi Jianlian, Wang Zhelin and Zhou Qi, were a combined 8-of-24. Gilas’ defense held China to 38 percent field goal shooting, its worst in any game of the tournament, and forced one more turnover. But the Philippines shot itself in the foot by missing 11 free throws, including two on technicals. Curiously, China’s winning margin was 11 points, 78-67. Gilas was also outscored from three-point distance by three conversions.
While the referees didn’t decide the outcome of the contest, they made it easier for China to win. From the way Gilas played, the gold was definitely winnable for the Philippines. With a little more training time, the Philippines could’ve booked the ticket to Rio instead of China. Still, there is reason to applaud Gilas. The Philippine team made every Filipino proud to be Filipino by playing with guts, heart and spirit under duress. There will be a next time for sure, and when that happens, it will be Gilas’ turn to ascend the throne of Asia.
