Gunner Chitchai Ananti had injured his right shin on Friday afternoon in Thailand’s come-from-behind win over Malaysia, so his absence in the Thais’ match against the debuting Vietnam on Saturday did not come as a surprise.
But the shooting guard’s absence was hardly felt, as the Thais scored a wire-to-wire, 76-51 victory over the nine-man Vietnamese side, marking their second straight win in the regional cagefest.
And that is what Wutipong Dasom takes pride in — Thailand being able to pull off wins even with a depleted line-up.
“Thats the great thing about basketball. It’s a team sport,” said Dasom after the match.
“When you have that chemistry, when one player’s out, other people step up. You work together as a team to take over if someone has an injury.”
Ananti scored 24 points, leading Thailand’s comeback win against Malaysia yesterday. But for the 26-year-old swingman, they can survive without him.
“We didn’t feel it (his absence). We play the same way — we [can] play with him or without him,” continued Dasom, who took advantage of Ananti’s absence as he logged in nearly 15 minutes and contributed 11 markers.
The Thais are now off to a good start at 2-0. However, the former ABL cager with Hi-Tech Bangkok City iterated that they have yet to face true competitors in the tourney, citing Indonesia and the Philippines as their true tests.
“We feel okay but in all honesty, the teams we played aren’t the competition — not that it wasn’t competitive, but it’s good to work on our game and get warmed up for what really matters in this competition, which are Indonesia and the Philippines,” the 6-foot-4 said.
“That’s where we really have to perform against, to see where we stand in Southeast Asia.”
And tomorrow, Sunday, Dasom and his team will be facing the veteran-laden Indonesians at 3:00 PM — a game he calls as their “biggest test.”
“That’s the biggest test for us because Indonesia, we’re always head-to-head. Philippines has always been on top but us, Indonesia, and Malaysia have always been head-to-head. If we can beat Indonesia, win by one or two points, how we beat them is going to make the difference. We’ll see when we get there.
“We’ll play basketball and whatever happens happens,” Dasom declared.
