Marcus Douthit scoring out of his comfort
zone.
Too
many one-on-one plays.
Poor
shot selections.
Turnovers
killing us.
Players
just watching the Iranians score.
JV Casio is injured.
This
is the same problem we had in all of the international basketball tournaments
we participate in.
To add
insult to injury, Mark Barroca got
injured while getting an inbound.
By the
way, President Noynoy Aquino wished Smart-Gilas good luck before the game.
Did he
just jinxed the squad?
Speaking
of Barroca, he was a gem especially in the first half. As Douthit, Chris Tiu, Dondon Hontiveros, and the
rest of the squad struggled; Barroca and Mac
Baracael tried their best in making the match respectable for our favor.
It was
a convincing victory for the Iranians but technically it was Hamed Haddadi that killed our chances.
His total output was a mere slight fraction of the Philippines’ total output.
He creamed us in the inside and our offensive inadequacies combined for their
explosive win. Actually if we just let Haddadi do that but at the same time,
attack the basket, we could have at least
given a worthy fight on the Iranians. Douthit’s midrange jumper bailed on him
and it seems that the rest of the Gilas squad was watching him do it all.
In my short
span of coaching my office department’s basketball team (I wonder why I brought
this up), the thing I hate the most is big men not forcing their way towards
the basket. This is why people would love Dennis
Espino than Jun Limpot. When you
have the power, it’s a sin to not use it. In the PBA where physicality is encouraged
especially in big games, we didn’t see that in the Iran game. The fangs were
brought down and I was hoping Rajko
Toroman would use Jason Ballesteros
to do something Mark Yee-ish. I
hated how Haddadi used his size to piss off the team’s chance to face Korea in the 2011 Jones Cup finals.
But
what’s past is past.
Hopefully
this is the last time Smart-Gilas lose against any opponent inside Asia. The
reason why Casio was not sent in is because this cup is a mere test for even
bigger things.
I would
love to see Team Pilipinas win the Chinese-Taipei
match and then win the 2011 FIBA-Asia
Championship so that I can see Smart-Gilas play in the 2012 London Olympics.
Game
over.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment