Gilas Pilipinas Didn’t Allow Turkey Win Easy This Time
Gilas Pilipinas gave the giant Turkish team a ‘good game’ during their last tune-up game, Friday night at the Mall of Asia Arena, in preparations for the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament.
The Philippine basketball team lost for the second time with 84-76, against the giants of Turkey. Last game time, Gilas lost with 103-68 on their first meeting.
Both the Philippines and Turkey will be competing in the Qualifiers starting July 5 but, not in the semifinals.
In a report by Sports 5, the ranked number eight team in the world, Turkish team, have had a tough time against the Philippines making it easy to say that the Philippines has been improving its game on the floor.
Though Gilas went down as much as 17 points after Turkey made a 16-0 run in the second and third quarters, with the help of naturalized player, Andray Blatche, the deficit was then trimmed to only 5, 58-53, with the Gilas’ 20-8 run.
Andray Blatche again led the Filipino team with 20 points, 7 rebounds, and 5 assists. Also, he had two steals and a block. He was then followed by Terrence Romeo with 16 points. Then, Jason Castro and Gabe Norwood had 13 and 10 respectively.
On the other hand, A. Muhammed led Turkey with 16 points while S. Guler and S. Erden had 13 points each.
In the fourth quarter, a small face-off was seen on the floor between the “Filipino Sakuragi” Mark Pingris and the 7-foot Turkish giant, Asik. Asik was then called for a foul and has been fouled out having 4 fouls already.
The game was part of the preparations for the upcoming Olympic Qualifying Tournament to be held in Manila starting July 5.
Is this a sign the Gilas Pilipinas can really go head to head with powerhouse teams in the world?
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