With its top player injured in battle against one of the top teams in Asia, the Philippine national men’s basketball team leaned on its big fighting heart to prevail.Gilas Pilipinas defeated South Korea, 86-79, to crash the finals of the FIBA Asia Championship on Saturday at the Mall of Asia.
Jimmy Alapag and Ranidel De Ocampo delivered the biggest baskets in the endgame, while Marc Pingris personified the big fighting heart of the Filipinos, who won despite missing Marcus Douthit who was injured in the second quarter.
The win gave the Philippines one of three tickets to the FIBA World Cup next year in Spain.
In the finals, Gilas will take on the last remaining undefeated team in the tournament, two-time champion Iran, which pummeled Chinese Taipei, 79-50, in their semifinal matchup earlier in the day.
With Douthit on the bench, Pingris picked up the slack for Gilas, finishing with 16 points and 10 rebounds. But the impact of ‘Pinoy Sakuragi’ went way beyond the boxscores, providing the energy and the hustle as he battled against the bigger players from South Korea.
The San Mig Coffee forward teamed with Jayson Castro, who finished with 17 points, as Gilas began the third quarter with a furious 11-0 run.
The Philippines entered the fourth quarter with a 65-56 advantage. But South Korea, behind the hot shooting hands of Kim Mingoo who finished with 27 points, rallied back to take the advantage at 75-73 with less than four minutes left.
But Alapag answered back with a three-pointer to give the Philippines back the advantage. After a South Korea basket, De Ocampo strung together five straight points to put Gilas up, 81-77.
Yang Donggeun nailed two free throws to keep within striking distance with little more than a minute left. But Alapag hit a dagger three-pointer with 53 seconds remaining to seal the deal for Gilas, which won over South Korea in a top-level Asian competition for the first time since 1986.
The memories of those painful defeats at the hands of South Korea remained fresh in the mind of Alapag, the Gilas team captain.
“We weren’t gonna let them come out of a win here tonight,” said Alapag.
Source: http://www.interaksyon.com/interaktv/big-fighting-heart-carries-gilas-pilipinas-past-south-korea-into-basketball-world-cup
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