The Gilas Pilipinas national men’s basketball team will try to end their Asian Games campaign with a winning note against one of the surprised team in the tournament, the Mongolia Basketball Team. The game between Philippines and Mongolia will be held today, October 1, 2014 at around 2:15 PM (Philippine Time).
See Also: Gilas vs. Mongolia Live Coverage, Results & Highlights
Here’s our Game Preview of Gilas Pilipinas vs. Mongolia:
The Philippines basketball game against Mongolia will be the last for the Filipinos who will try to exit the competition with victory and secure a seventh place finished, the worst-ever performance of any Philippine basketball team in the Asian Games.
During the previous Asian Games performance of the Philippine Team in basketball, the country’s worst finished was a pair of sixth-placers, in the 1966 and the 2010 edition of the Asian Games, but the country fielded amateurs to the tournament.
With the all-professional squad, the Filipinos never finished below the semi-finals or the Final Four of the tournament. A loss against Mongolia is very much unacceptable to the basketball-crazy Filipinos.
The Gilas Pilipinas will also face a determined opponent and will be playing handicapped, with some its players suffering from an injury. Marc Pingris has not played for the last two games of Gilas, while Jimmy Alapag will miss today’s game after he suffered an injury.
The Philippine team had chances to make to the semis of the competition as they led with 16 points against South Korea during their game but ended up with a 95-96 defeat. Gilas Pilipinas was also up by 18 points against Kazakhstan but still failed to make an 11-point win that could carry the to the semis.
Note: Due to some circumstances the game between Gilas Pilipinas and Mongolia will not be shown on TV, but we will make our Live Coverage of the Gilas vs. Mongolia later this afternoon.
