Gilas Pilipinas ended their Window 2 campaign in the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2027 Asian Qualifiers winless after suffering a brutal beatdown at the hands of Australia, 93-66, at the SM Mall of Asia Arena on Sunday night.
With many expecting a close bout after that tight affair against New Zealand the last time out, Gilas instead received a harsh reminder of how different the Boomers are after a second-half collapse wasted their solid start.
The Filipino dribblers managed to keep in step with the defending two-time FIBA Asia Cup champions early. They even trailed by just five entering the break, but the visitors found their touch in the third canto and broke away.
Gilas never recovered, ultimately falling to their second loss in a row to drop to 2-2 as the Aussies remained perfect in Group A with a 4-0 record.
“It was a very painful one. It was a very painful second half. Painful to be a part of, painful to watch. Especially being in front of our home crowd. We wanted to be better than that,” lamented head coach Tim Cone.
Justin Brownlee, after a rare off-night with four points against the Tall Blacks, led the Philippines with 20 points, eight rebounds, and seven assists.
Quentin Millora-Brown made 11 points and seven rebounds, but none of them hit double figures, a far cry from how their counterparts did.
A total of four players finished in twin digits for Team Australia, with Elijah Pepper leading the way with 28 points behind a quintet of triples.
Tanner Krebs made 18 points to close out his debut window strongly. The comebacking Mitch Creek came through with 13 points, eight rebounds, and five assists, while Tom Wilson chipped in 12 points and seven rebounds.
“We shared the ball really well, guys were getting open looks — there’s a couple of them where you see the ball swinging from one corner to the opposite corner with four, five passes. I think that’s Aussie basketball,” said Pepper.
Creek and Wilson helped set up the rout, conniving for a quick 7-2 run to turn a narrow five-point halftime lead to a 45-35 advantage barely two minutes into the third quarter as momentum slowly shifted the Boomers’way.
Krebs and Pepper then came in to contribute moments later. They knocked down a triple each to push their lead to 17 points, 61-44, with about three minutes remaining as the home team could no longer keep up.
“I thought we did everything we wanted defensively; we held guys down. But when they started to stretch the lead a little bit, got some open threes, and a couple of turnovers on our part, I think we just got deflated,” Cone said.
As disappointing as the loss was, the Philippines is still headed to the Second Round thanks to New Zealand’s 99-67 win over Guam earlier in the day.
The Australia-Philippines match was actually the last of the second window after the games in Groups C and D, originally scheduled for Monday, had to be postponed by FIBA due to the ongoing tensions in the Middle East.
The Scores:
Australia 93 – Pepper 28, Krebs 18, Creek 13, Wilson 12, Kay 8, J. White 6, I. White 5, Froling 3, Smith 0, Holt 0.
Philippines 66 – Brownlee 20, Millora-Brown 11, Ramos 9, Edu 6, Newsome 4, Oftana 3, Thompson 3, Perez 3, Quiambao 3, Tamayo 2, Fajardo 2, Gomez de Liano 0.
Quarterscores: 14-13, 38-33, 68-53, 93-66.
