Smart Gilas will try to rebound today for their sorry loss yesterday against the struggling but more determined Lebanese team which ended the Nationals winning streak and dropped them to the second spot with a total of 4-1 win-loss card.
The Philippine Team will be facing one of their toughest opponent in the competition, the three-time successive Champion of the Jones Cup, the Iran National Basketball Team.
Iran have successfully defeated one of their toughest opponent in the competition, the United States Team via double overtime with the final score of 97-89. If they can win against Gilas they almost insured the title of this year’s edition for they will be facing the struggling South Koreans and Japanese Team.
Smart Gilas on the other hand will face the highly-improved Chinese Taipei A National Team followed by the United States, the National’s last match in the competition.
One of the most difficult to contain by the Smart Gilas team is the Iranian National Basketball Team veteran Samad Bahrami. The 6-foot-6 forward from Iran is considered as one of Asia’s finest players, he was averaging a tournament’s best of 28.7 points per game.
Smart Gilas Coach Chot Reyes promised to give out his best man to depend Bahrami and he is looking on the capabilities of Gabe Norwood to depend the Iranian, Norwood is also considered as one of the most athletic player in the Gilas roster. Gilas will also make use of it’s dribble-drive motion offense to counter Iran’s front line.
Meanwhile here’s the line-up from both teams:
Iran National Basketball Team Topscorers:
- Samad Nikkah Bahrami
- Saeid Davarpanah,
- Hamed Sohrabnejad
- Farid Aslani
- Mahdi Kamrani
- Oshin Sahakiah
- Hamed Afagh
- Mousa Nabipour
