Gilas Wins Over Lebanon 82-70!

Photo courtesy of FIBA.com

One more game won, two more games to win.

Gilas Pilipinas completed the Final Four cast fo the FIBA Asia Championships, with their 82-70 victory over the Lebanon Cedars. They will go on to once again face Japan for a seat in the finals.

Here’s a look back at some predictions made in the an earlier article (to read “Gilas vs Lebanon: Not A Mismatch”, go to http://sportsfandom.blogspot.com/2015/09/gilas-vs-lebanon-not-mismatch.html)

MATCH UPS TO WATCH OUT FOR

JJ Youngblood vs Gabe Norwood/Calvin Abueva – as predicted, it was Gabe Norwood and Calvin Abueva who took on the high scoring guard, which mean the smaller Hontiveros ahd to toake on the much bigger Amir Saoud. The Lebanese tried to exploit this early on, leading to the quick entry of Abueva into the game. Abueva and Norwoord hounded into a 12 point brickfest (5-15), a full 7 points below his scoring average before this game. On the other end, Norwood hit a crucial three to give Gilas some breathing room in the third quarter while Abueva was his usual pesky self on the boards and on defense.

Gilas Wins Over Japan But At What Cost?

Photo courtesy of FIBA.com

Was the Gilas vs Japan game important? Of course it was.

But was it a must-win game? As far as second round games, maybe it was. But then again, losing that game would have merely meant a harder road to the finals, but not elimination from the tournament.

Those come later, when we move into the knockout stages. Will we then regret playing Andray Blatche in the third and fourth quarter of this game, rather than letting him rest his ankle so he can recover for the remaining games ahead?

Gilas 3.0 vs Gilas 2.0: The Bigs

It’s the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about: how would Gilas 3.0 fare against Gilas 2.0, the acknowledged best Philippine basketball team in recent times?

Just to be clear, we’ll be using the Gilas 2.0 lineup used at the FIBA World Cup, which means 2014 Andray Blatche will be in play, as well as Paul Lee but not Larry Fonacier nor Marcus Douthit.

With that, let’s start the discussion with the bigs.

GILAS 2.0	GILAS 3.0
Slim Andray Blatche	Portly Andray Blatche
JuneMar Fajardo	Asi Taulava
Japhet Aguilar	Sonny Thoss
Ranidel de Ocampo	Ranidel de Ocampo
Marc Pingris	Marc Pingris

For the sake of argument, let’s assume that Gilas 3.0’s Pingris and de Ocampo will bring the same kind of production as the 2.0 versions of themselves did. That leaves us with six players to discuss: Slim Blatche versus portly Blatche, Fajardo vs Taulava, and Aguilar versus Thoss.

With The Wizards, It's About The Triple-Double, Not The Win!

JaVale McGee had a hard time getting this triple-double!

But that's nothing to the determination of Andray Blatche to get the triple double.