A slow start and fouls doomed Pasig Chooks-to-Go against Belgium’s Antwerp, faltering 14-21, Friday evening at Gorky Park in Moscow, Russia.
The loss sent the Philippine-based club team to a must-win situation later on against world no. 3 Riga Ghetto at 12:25 am.
Antwerp owns a 1-1 record after falling to Riga earlier in the day, 7-18. The top two teams in Pool B will advance to the next stage of the 2019 FIBA 3X3 Tinkoff Moscow Challenger.
Buckets were hard to find for the Pasig quartet early, only scoring three points in the first two minutes and 16 seconds of the game.
On the other end, Antwerp made it rain from distance as Amaury Marion, Nick Celis, and Anthony Chada torched Pasig from deep to build an 11-3 cushion.
The country’s top player Joshua Munzon though remained defiant, scoring four straight points before dishing out a beautiful assist to Taylor Statham to cut the lead down to just five with six minutes left.
Celis and Thierry Marien tried to break the wills of Pasig after scoring back-to-back triples but Pasig continued to persevere.
The duo of Munzon and Statham continued the Pasig surge, slicing the lead down to just four after back-to-back deuces, 14-18, with 3:57 left.
However, Pasig’s defense proved to be too physical as they were already in the red zone (10th foul) with 3:29 left. Celis split his free throws and in the resulting possession Marion sent Antwerp to match point.
A miss by Celis was cleaned up by Chada with 2:59 left to keep the Belgium-based club alive for a playoff spot.
Statham and Munzon had seven and five points respectively for Pasig.
Antwerp, who knocked down seven deuces in the contest, were led by Chada’s nine markers.
The Scores:
Antwerp 21 – Chada 9, Marien 5, Celis 4, Marion 3.
Pasig 14 – Statham 7, Munzon 5, Pavlovic 1, Ababou 1.
