After pounding Myanmar by 107 points, Gilas Pilipinas faced better competion on Saturday night but still slapped Singapore with a 113-66 win to take their second victory in the 2017 SEABA Championship.
The win moves the Philippines’ slate to 2-0, tying Indonesia and Thailand, while Singapore dropped to the bottom of the standings with a 0-2.
Calvin Abueva continued his strong start to the tournament. After dropping 22 points on opening day, the Angeles City native led Gilas with 16 points on 5-for-10 shooting, to go along with five caroms and three dimes in just 17 minutes of action.
And in what has become the norm, Gilas Pilipinas raced to an early 11-0 surge in the opening frame and never looked back. During that rally, June Mar Fajardo and Roger Pogoy combining for nine points.
The Singaporeans scored their first points with 5:43 left in the opening frame after free throws from Delvin Goh, while a triple by Hanbin Ng with 5:14 left in the stanza became their first field goal. Gilas led by as much 34 points in the opening half.
Andray Blatche almost notched a double-double with 14 points and nine rebounds in 18 minutes of game time, while Allein Maliksi chipped in 14 markers as well.
But Singapore gave a valiant stand in the second half when Gilas Pilipinas let their guards. Moreover, the result failed to meet coach Chot Reyes’ goal for the game.
“We wanted to beat our hustle numbers from last night. We had a very poor second half, hustle-wise, effort-wise. I don’t know if it was enough to beat last night’s numbers. It wasn’t a good second half,” Reyes lamented.
Gilas was able to force Myanmar to commit 38 turnovers. But on Saturday evening, they were only able to force their opponents to commit 16.
On the other end, Singapore was the more aggressive team heading to the stripe, attempting 20 free throws compared to 14 for the Philippines.
Behind Larry Liew and Delvin Goh, Singapore was able to cut the lead to 30 with 5:24 left in the third frame.
“We take what the defense gives us, we play at our own pace. But it wasn’t like last night because Singapore is a much better team than Myanmar. That’s just to be expected,” Reyes added.
Gilas’ shock troopers Abueva and Terrence Romeo were able to restore order, pushing the lead back to the high 30’s to end the third frame. Gilas led by as much as 51 points, 113-62, late in the fourth quarter.
Singapore shot better from the field in this game compared to their opening day outing. After going just 32.2 percent from the field against Indonesia, they finished the game shooting 37.7 percent from the field this game.
Liew led five Singapore players in double-digits with 14 points. Wong Wei Long added 12 points and grabbed six rebounds.
Before going on a one-day break, Gilas Pilipinas will take on Malaysia tomorrow at 7:00pm. Singapore, on the other hand, will have a bye before facing Malaysia on Monday, May 15 at 5:00pm.
The Scores:
Philippines (113) – Abueva 16, Blatche 14, Maliksi 14, Wright 13, Fajardo 11, Romeo 9, Pogoy 9, Rosario 9, Almazan 8, Jalalon 6, Aguilar 4, Castro William 0.
Singapore (66) – Liew 14, Wong 12, Kwek 11, Ng HB 11, D. Goh 10, J. Ng 4, Cheok 2, Lim JY 1, Chia 1, J. Lim 0.
Quarterscores: 31-9, 63-29, 89-51, 113-66.
