Kevin Quiambao a bright light in Gilas’ loss to Taipei

MANILA, Philippines — No NBA Summer League stint for now but Kevin Quiambao is as happy to showcase his hoop skills in the FIBA Asia Cup in Jeddah for Gilas Pilipinas.

Quiambao, probably the best-conditioned player in the Gilas camp, coming in fresh from his tryouts in the US, gratefully answered coach Tim Cone’s call off the bench and provided the “highlight” in an otherwise gloomy opening gig against Chinese-Taipei.

Deployed in the second half, “KQ” fired 17 points to go with three rebounds and two assists in only 16 minutes as he backed up Justin Brownlee’s 19 in the Nationals’ 87-95 defeat.

The 24-year-old forward keyed the fourth-quarter rally that enabled Gilas to get to within six after trailing the sweet-shooting Taiwanese by as many as 17.

“Stay-ready mentality lang,” Quiambao, who previously saw action in four of the Nationals’ six matches in the AC Qualifiers and averaged 8.3 points, 4.0 rebounds and 1.8 assists in 16. 3 minutes, said in an interview on Cignal. “Yung trust ni coach Tim (Cone) sa akin nandoon so kailangan ko siyang suklian.”

“He came out and played with a lot of energy, hit some big shots for us. But (we) still came up short,” said Cone of Quiambao, who shot at an efficient 6-of-10 clip and was a +19 in efficiency against Chinese-Taipei.

“In terms of the way Kevin played, Kevin played very, very well, and he was the highlight of the team.”

Everyone should be the “highlight” next time with powerhouse New Zealand as their opponent in the second day of Group D action last night. The Tall Blacks opened their campaign with a 100-78 crushing of Iraq last Tuesday.

“Marami kaming natutunan dito (loss to Chinese-Taipei), mag-aadjust kami agad for the next game (against NZ),” said Quiambao.