Undoubtedly, the story of Gilas Pilipinas’ 82-81 overtime victory over Jordan was about CJ Perez’s frenetic pace, Kevin Quiambao’s go-ahead triple, and Kai Sotto’s game-saving block.
But plenty of heroes worked together to produce the four-game skid-snapping result in the 2027 FIBA World Cup Asian Qualifiers on Friday night before a jam-packed crowd at the SM Mall of Asia Arena.
One of them was AJ Edu, who shone with his two-way productivity while teaming up with the returning Sotto.
Edu finished with nine points and 11 rebounds, seven of which came on the offensive end. But those numbers hardly told the whole story.
“AJ was phenomenal,” Philippines head coach Tim Cone said postgame.
“AJ, with his defensive versatility, was able to jump out on screens and really kinda stop [Jordan’s] offense in its tracks.”
Jordan opened the game on fire, quickly building a 26-8 lead behind six three-pointers that stunned the Philippines and its home crowd.
Edu, a 6-foot-9 big man, however, provided the spark Gilas badly needed. He scored six points late in the opening quarter to help the Philippines cut the deficit to 28-14.
Then, in the second half, he teamed up with the 7-foot-3 Sotto to tighten the paint and silence Jordan’s lethal duo of Jalen Harris and Freddy Ibrahim, effectively forcing the visitors to look elsewhere for offense.
Much of Harris’ and Ibrahim’s scoring came in the first half, with the former putting up 14 of his 19 points before halftime and the latter scoring 15 of his 22.
“He changed our pick-and-roll defense. We had to change our schemes from the first half because we weren’t getting up on our screens and Harris was rising from screens, Ibrahim was rising from screens and getting shots,” shared Cone.
“Without that [Edu’s defense], we wouldn’t have been able to get back into the game, and that was one of the defensive big adjustments that happened because of what he was doing, and that really changed the tempo of the game.”
The collective effort pushed Gilas to a 3-4 record in Pool E, good for solo fifth place. The Philippines is now just two games behind New Zealand, Iran, and Jordan, who are tied for second at 5-2, with each team having five games remaining.
The Philippines will look to complete a perfect home stand on Sunday at 8:00 PM, still at the MOA Arena, when it faces Iran, which lost to New Zealand in overtime in its last outing.
