SMART GILAS DREAM SMASHED BY IRAN
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Fri, 21 Sep 2012
The Smart Gilas national team held Iran to a 30-30 deadlock at the end of the first half but the dream of making the finals in the FIBA Asia Championships was smashed by an unbeaten powerhouse Iran team who turned the game around with a big second half to win 77-60 in Tokyo.
The Filipinos will go for the bronze medal when they face the winner of the Japan-Qatar second semi final which was being played at press-time.
Smart Gilas gutted it out in the first quarter 5o come back from an early 3-6 deficit to grab a six point lead 17-11 following a long 2 by Larry Fonacier, a floater by LA Tenorio and an unexpected triple by Jared Dillinger before Iran ended the quarter with a 5-0 run to be down by one, 17-16.
The Filipinos surrendered the lead when Iran scored on a three point play to lead 19-17 but Dillinger worked inside, Marcus Douthit scored on a turnaround and Ranidel earned a basket to make it 23-19 .
It turned into a see-saw battle before the Gilas squad began to be troubled by foul calls with Sonny Thoss picking up his fourth foukl with 1:37 remaining in the first half,
A terrific crossover dribble and a basket by Tenorio, a long triple from Chan and a basket by De Ocampo off a steal and a fastbreak closed out the quarter at 30-30 where the Iranians had been slapped with only 2 fouls with Smart hurt by a 13 to 7 foul count at the half although we held the bigger Iranians to a 16-16 standoff in rebounds.
The third quarter opened with Smart Gilas committing three successive turnovers on top of the 13 in the first half as Iran behind a triple by big man Oshin Sahakian and a three point play by Bahrami plus a basket by Rouabeh Arghavan opened up an eight point lead at 38-30 before a big triple by Afagh made it 46-36.
Back-to-back triples by Game Norwood closed the gap to 42-48 with 3:00 minutes remaining in the third before foul calls began to take their toll on the Philippines although the nationals stayed within striking distance at 47-53.
Douthit was called for a questionable third foul which appeared to take the sting out of the naturalized center with two slam dunks by Asghar Kardoust and a second by Nohammad Jamshidi further demoralizing the team and enabling the Iranians to open up a 59-47 lead with 8:06 remaining.
Two-time PBA MVP Willie Miller who was guest on the AKTV IBC 13 television panel that telecast the game live kept stressing that the Filipinos needed a couple of stops that would bring them back but instead of stops they continued to turn the ball over and get called for fouls with Douthit and Thoss picking up their 4th fouls in a span of a minute that virtually made them helpless in defense and enabled Iran to maximize on their size advantage.
Clearly hampered by foul trouble throughout the game the Filipinos allowed Iran 30 free throws of which they made 20 while Smart Gilas was only awarded 9 free throws.
Iran opened up a 15 point lead with a 9-0 blast at 62-47 even as turnovers continued to hound the national team which had 23 going into the last two minutes enabling Iran to post their biggest lead of the game 76-56 before Enrico Villanueva made one of two free throws and Tenorio heaved a trey to end the game with the Filipinos on the bench looking forlorn.
Coach Chot Reyes knowing the game was lost pulled out Douthit with some eight minutes to play obviously preserving him for the battle for third.
Iran (77) ? Afagh 14, Kardoust 13, Jasmshidi 13, Bahrami 12, Sahakian 12, Davoudi 6, Arghavan 6, Foroutan 1, Aslani 0, Yahchali 0.
SMART-Gilas Pilipinas (60) ? Dillinger 13, Tenorio 13, Douthit 11, Chan 5, Fonacier 5, De Ocampo 4, Norwood 4, Villanueva 3, David 2, Reyes 0, Rosser 0, Thoss 0.
Quarterscores: 16-17, 30-30, 53-47, 77-60
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ronnie Nathanielsz.
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