Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Gilas Pilipinas halt Qatar win streak

One of Japeth's three dunks

Japeth Aguilar put a punctuation mark on the Smart Gilas win over Team Qatar as his empathic dunk with 7 seconds left in the game showed that TEAM Philippines has awaken from the slumber that they took five days ago.  Team Pilipinas beat QATAR 80 – 70 as apparently the point spread was enough to fend off the rallying middle east team. Marcus Douthhit led the team with 19 points as he literally scored at will as the Qataris could not keep up with his inside presence while  Aguilar on the other hand added 14 points.

Marcus was a force in the middle

The home team controlled the pace of the game from the get go as Jeff Chan started the ball rolling with two three pointers right away. The Filipinos then zoomed in to a 15 – 6 lead as Gabe Norwood tried to shut down Qatar’s naturalized player Jarvis Hayes. Hayes is the tournament leader in points with 22 points per game but the Filipinos did well in shutting him down. He still managed to score a team high 17 points but most of those came from garbage time and he even missed two crucial free throws right around the time they had a blistering run in the fourth period. The Qataris eventually caught up in the first quarter to tie the score at 20 – all.

Jeff Chan buries a three

The second quarter proved to be the difference in the match as the Filipinos scored one basket after the other and their tight defense held the Qatar team to just 9 points. The Filipinos through LA Tenorio, Gary David, Jason William and Jimmy Alapag alternated in scoring to give Team Gilas a 47 – 29 lead.  The Qataris never knew what hit them.  There was tension in the third quarter when Marcus Douthit came down holding his knees and eventually limping off the court. With Douthit out, the Qataris used the first few minutes of the fourth quarter to get back into the game.

Jolens move by LA Tenorio

The Qataris opened the quarter with a 14 – 2 run as their outside sniping finally came into play and their inside play finally making wonders. Aside from Hayes, Efran Ali Saeed scored inside to give the home team a big scare. Jeff Chan sank a free throw and Marcus Douthit eventually came back in to help the Smart Gilas team stem the tide. Japeth Aguilar showed his athleticism by grabbing missed rebounds by Qatar and at the same time scoring at the free throw line and dunking on everyone else.

Crowd favorite Gary David on the move


The win made the Qatar vs. Chinese Taipei game a crucial one today. If Chinese Taipei wins the Philippines will have to meet China in the Quarterfinals. A win by Qatar will have the Smart Gilas take first place in Group E and will meet most probably Kazahkstan. If Qatar wins by 16 points then they take first place then RP comes in second. Tough task for the Filipinos so lets troop to the MOA Arena to cheer our team. LABAN PILIPINAS.

  
 Japeth's 2nd dunk


The scores
PHILIPPINES (80)
Douthit 19, Aguilar 14, Chan 12, Tenorio 7, William 7, Alapag 5, David 5, de Ocampo 4, Norwood 3, Pingris 2, Fonacier 2, Fajardo 0.
QATAR (70)
Hayes 17, Saeed 13, Abdi 9, Musa 8, Daoud 8, Elhadary 5, Mohamed 4, Mohammed 4, Mo. Abdullah 2, Ali 0, Ma. Abdullah 0, Saad 0.

Quarter scores
20 – all, 47 – 29, 63 – 44, 80 – 70 

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