HEARTBREAK
Gilas Pilipinas fails to scale Great Wall of China in their 18th Asian Games men’s group D preliminary game in Indonesia
A Jordan Clarkson-led Gilas Pilipinas, who earlier erased a 12-point deficit, still fell short and absorbed a heartbreaking 80-82 loss to the Great Wall of China in their Group D elimination game at the Gelora Bung Karno (GBK) Sports Complex Basketball Hall in Indonesia yesterday evening.
This after Stanley Pringle’s back-to-back lay-up lifted the Philippines to an 80-77 advantage with only one minute and 23 seconds left.
Chinese Qi Zhou converted one of his two free throws after Pringle fouled him to cut Gilas’ lead to just two. But Rui Zhao grabbed a steal and sank a fast break lay-up to tie the match at 80-all barely 46 sec- onds remaining in the game.
Clarkson, who erupted with four triples in the third period, missed a jumpshot but JP Erram took the offensive rebound for Christian Standhardinger who also missed a lay-up.
Zhelin Wang got the board while Clarkson fouled Rui Zhao who went perfect on the free throw line for China to snatch an 82-80 lead.
The Philippines made an attempt to seal the win but Paul Lee missed a three-pointer in the final six seconds, dropping to a 1-1 win-loss card.
Clarkson sizzled with 28 points while Standhardinger and Pringle added 18 and 14, respectively, for Gilas while Qi Zhou drilled in 25 to lead scoring for China. Wang had 13 and Abudushalamu Abudurexiti with 12.
A win by China against Kazakhstan will catapult them to No. 1 in Group D and will pit the Chinese to a less challenging team while the Philippines will most likely face defending champion South Korea in the knockout quarterfinals.