Jordan foiled the Philippine National Basketball Team’s hope of making it to the finals of the on-going 2011 FIBA Asia Mens Basketball Championhip in Wuhan, China by subduing and outscoring the small but faster Filipino squad more popularly known as Smart Gilas during the first game of the semi-finals.
Smart Gilas Pilipinas suffered a heart-warming loss against the team they had earlier defeated during the 2nd round of elimination and eventually bowed down and out of contention for the lone Asian berths for the 2012 London Olympics.
The final score were recorded at 61-75 in favor of the Jordanian Basketball Team which is more popularly known as Al-Nashama with the leadership of naturalized point guard and main weapon of Jordan Rashiem Wright who had showed that he deserved to be a part of the Jordanian team that will competed for the finals for the first time in Jordan’s history.
Top scoring for the Jordanian Basketball Team were Rashiem Wright with 24 big points, Osama Daghles with 16 points and Zaid Abbas with 14 points. One of the factors that keeps the momentum for the Jordanian team was their defensive pressures against the guards of the Philippines who had been struggling on outside shooting.
Jordan had also capitalized each turn-overs that the Philippines were making especially during the crucial minutes of the game. During the fourth quarter the 11-0 run made by Jordan against the Smart Gilas was the most crucial part of the game and the Filipinos couldn’t just answered the attacked made by Jordan.
Smart Gilas had played their worst game of the tournament committing crucial turn-overs and missing open shots from the outside. Only naturalized center Marcus Douthit was able to deliver the usual points from Smart Gilas but the rest of the guys were struggling on offense.
The only other Filipino who had scored on double figures was point guards JV Casio with 15 points supporting the 21 points made by Marcus Douthit. Jimmy Alapag had been put under pressure scoring only with 1 point in a total of 15 minutes of play.
Ranidel de Ocampo had scored with 8 points, Kelly Williams had 6 points and Mark Barroca with 4 points. One of lowest performer having playing with a lots of minutes was L(–foul word(s) removed–)iter who had scored only with 2 points in 35 minutes of play and staring for Smart Gilas.
Box Scores: FIBA Asia Basketball Semi-finals
Video Replay of the game will be posted here later as soon as it is available from third party websites.
FIBA Asia Semi-Finals Replay.
Smart Gilas vs. Jordan