Gilas Loses To China, 67-78, Cops Silver Medal.

Photo courtesy of FIBA.com

For the first two minutes, Gilas seemed like they would be able to do to China what they did to Iran.  Gilas started off with a 5 point burst before China could even get a point on the scoreboard. But when China started crashing the boards, they started piling up the points on the scoreboard very quickly.

Gilas worked themselves in striking distance for most of the game. At the end of the third, when Gilas was down by just 10, China struck with a 5-point flurry that took the wind out of the Gilas sails. From that moment, China was able to coast until the end of the game.

Here are the four key factors that contributed to Gilas losing this game:

China’s overwhelming height advantage – Zhou Qi and Yi Jianlian made life so miserable for everyone on Gilas, from Blatche, who was unable to bank on his superior physical gifts, to Castro, whose shots either got swatted or missed because he had to change his shot to avoid the block.  Blatche only had 4 points at the end of the first half and none of the other big men could score up close. The only one with any real success inside was Calvin Abueva, who drew fouls from the Chinese big men repeatedly. Of course, he also went 3-8 on FT’s so he was unable to capitalize on those fouls.

Gilas’ poor outside shooting – Gilas went 6-24 (25%) on threes tonight, with Blatche going 1-5, Ranidel de Ocampo going 1-6, and Dondon Hontiveros going 2-6. That stat is crucial because the three-point shot is a zone buster, and the Chinese played zone for most of the game. Had we hit our threes with any consistency, the Chinese would have had to play man D, and that would have given Castro or Romeo more chances to break down his defender. The last time we shot this low from three? The loss to Palestine, when we shot 29%.

Lack of energy defensively – Aside from Gabe Norwood, Marc Pingris, Calvin Abueva, and Dondon Hontiveros, I thought the others played defense without their usual energy. De Ocampo was particularly lackluster on defense tonight and so was Matt Ganuelas. Blatche, in particular, didn’t really seem to challenge China’s big guys on the defensive end, with Zhou Qi and Yi Jianlian getting the better of him several times.

Spotty officiating – Of course I’m biased. But just because I’m biased doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. In the first half alone, there were three very bad foul calls against Gilas, two of them coming against Abueva. Those foul calls occurred during box out situations and even on the replay, the foreign commentators had to admit that the call was bad. What was irritating was after acknowledging the hometown call, all the commentators would say was “well, that’s basketball, you’ve got to expect that when you’re playing the hometown team”. Say what again? Since when has favoring the hometown team become accepted referee behavior? And that trend continued till the end of regulation, with Castro being whistled for a traveling call that surprised everyone on court, even the Chinese.

That being said, we knew it was going to take an almost perfect game from Gilas to beat China in China. And the game we played was less than perfect. That doesn’t take away from the fact that Gilas stood toe-to-toe with China, slugged it out for honor and glory, and emerged with a silver medal that glistens golden in our eyes.

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