After facing ball club San Miguel Alab Pilipinas numerous times before in the ASEAN Basketball League, Joshua Munzon has now tasted what it’s like going up against the Philippine Men’s National Basketball Team.
Munzon, the Fil-American Heritage Import of Westports Malaysia Dragons, is in town to beef up the iECO Green Warriors, who are bound for the Terrific 12 tilt in Macau. Munzon and iECO faced the Nationals Sunday in a tune-up.
The newly-formed ball club lost steam at the end, 82-99. But regardless of the result, Munzon was elated.
“It was definitely a lot of fun,” beamed the 23-year-old swingman from California. “Definitely got a chance to see where we match up at against them.
“Seeing all those guys and playing against them, I had a lot of fun.”
Munzon was one of iECO’s major keys in giving the Nationals a legitimate threat, as he helped the Green Warriors demolish a 14-point wall on the third canto to close to within a field goal, 70-72, with 8:31 left in the game.
Across three quarters, Munzon fired 16 points, a performance greatly highlighted by his blinding speed and explosiveness. To put up such a game against the national team is a huge mark, but for him, he simply played as hard as he could.
“I just like to play hard.
“Doesn’t matter if it’s success or failure, I just wanna go out there and play as hard as I can, every second I’m out there. Good things will happen, bad things will happen. You just gotta weather the storm,” he said.
Sunday was the very first time that Munzon faced the Filipino dribblers, who are made up of PBA stars. So for the 23-year-old, he looks forward to the day where he will be able to slug it out with them in the league in the future.
Munzon had his hands full in that tune-up, as he faced decorated and well-established guards such as Gabe Norwood, Allein Maliksi, Paul Lee, Marcio Lassiter, Alex Cabagnot, Scottie Thompson, and Stanley Pringle.
“Definitely, I have some aspirations of playing in the PBA and matching up against those guys on a daily basis,” shared Munzon, who might throw his name into the PBA D-League Draft set to take place on January 2019.
