Mission accomplished: Gilas crushes Indonesia to sweep 2017 SEABA

MANILA, Philippines — Like in their game against Malaysia, the Philippines trailed early. But that only lasted for a couple of seconds.

In Thursday’s virtual gold medal match, Gilas drubbed Indonesia, 97-64, to keep their unbeaten run in the 2017 Southeast Asian Basketball Championship and punch the only ticket to the FIBA Asia Cup.

After Jayson Castro opened the game with a couple of charities, Indonesia knotted the game behind Mario Wuysang’s jump shot. Difta Prathama added three more to hike it to 5-2.  But that’s the only time the visitors would be on the driver seat. 

Naturalized big man Andray Blatche and Jayson Castro combined for 24 markers in the first half to snatch the lead from the foreigners. Slowly, they added to the lead. Slowly, they widened the gap.

Surely, they sealed the deal. Surely, the kept the Olympic dream lit.

Blatche went on to finish the game with 21 points. Castro capped off his night with 14 markers. PBA’s back-to-back-to-back Most Valuable Player chipped in 13 more.

Despite their fresh reinforcements in naturalized cager Jamarr Johnson and half-American Arki Wisnu, the Indonesians just couldn’t keep up.

Johnson was a nonfactor in a field that featured a towering one-two punch of 6-foot-11 big men Blatche and Fajardo. Wisnu, on the other hand, only had 11 points.

The Philippines will now set its sights on the FIBA Asia hostilities in Lebanon and the Southeast Asian Games in Malaysia, both of which will be held this August.

Earlier, the Batang Gilas also swept the U-16 competition. They also qualified to play in the FIBA U-16 Asia Challenge at a venue still to be determined.