Why Gilas fell to South Korea

MANILA, Philippines – If you’re a fan of Philippine basketball, this is one of those mornings where you wake up in a daze. Like you’re in the midst of a bad hangover. You shake your head and well, feel bad.

Gilas Pilipinas was on the business end of a 118-86 shellacking from South Korea that ended their FIBA Asia Cup medal hopes. Instead of trying to match the twin silver medal finishes of the past two continental cup editions, the Nationals will try to salvage a fifth place finish (assuming it doesn’t drop any more matches).

How did the Koreans cruelly snuff the life out of Gilas?

They shot the daylights out of Nouhad Nawfal Sports Complex.

If anyone wrote the book about deadly outside shooting in Asia, it’s Korea. Heck, former national coach Joe Lipa went to Korea as far back as the mid-1980s to learn the style that he eventually tried to implement in his national sides including his collegiate squads in Ateneo and UP.

The Philippines shot 45 percent from 2-point field goal range and 42 percent from 3-point land. In fact, the nationals hit 11-25 treys! That is absolutely very good for any other game and plenty good enough to win.

Except against Korea… well, they shot 59 percent from 2-point range and 76 percent from La La Land. Say that again? Seventy-six percent That’s a blistering 16-21 from beyond.

Someone ought to check the Koreans if they were using GPS.

They played aggressive.

I am not sure about the comments of playing physical against Korea. What is physical — knocking them down on their butt so they don’t even attempt to shoot again? Like how Kim Min Goo was decked in 2013?

Maybe. But you get slapped with a technical foul and you get into penalty early.

I thought that Korea adjusted well to the dribble drive and played zone. Furthermore, they played at a killer pace; very up-tempo. They kept moving, and that stretched the defense, whereas the Filipinos were a bit slower. Korea almost always had a man in front of a Filipino.

In fact, they also gave the Philippines a dose of its own medicine by attacking the interior. The one slam was off a putback when Korea failed to box out (and Japeth Aguilar came in from the blind side). How many times did they run the pick and roll or drive and drop to devastating effect?

Korea trooped to the free throw line 22 times, where they hit 14 for a surprisingly poor 63 percent. In contrast, Gilas attempted 12 free throws and made seven.

They also had 50 points in the paint as compared to Gilas’ 42.

They whipped that ball around ,leaving Gilas to chase them.

Aside from their outside shooting, a hallmark of Korea’s style of play is the wondrous ball movement. They sure stretched the defense of the Philippines and more often than not had wide open shooters.

It sure helps when almost all their players can shoot from the outside. And that led to this other telling stat — 34 assists to the Philippines’ 14.

They got significant contributions from their entire team.

The Philippines had four players in double digits — Terrence Romeo, Christian Standhardinger, Roger Pogoy and Jayson Castro.

Korea, for its part, had five finishing in double digits — Sekeun Oh, Sunhyung Kim, Jongkyu Kim, Seonghyun Lee, and Junhyung Lee. But they also three other players with nine points — Chan Hee Park, Junyong Choi and Ung Heo.

The Philippines paraded two players who didn’t score — Carl Cruz and Gabe Norwood. Korea only had one who didn’t score a point — Dongseop Lim.

It’s a painful loss. But the Philippines will just have to learn from this.