MANILA, Philippines – Gilas Pilipinas continued to scramble barely nine days before the start of the FIBA Olympic qualifier in Manila, suffering a numbing 70-106 loss to Italy in Day One of the four-nation pocket tournament at The Paladozza in Bologna, Italy Saturday night (early Sunday morning in Manila).
The Nationals were hapless and helpless as the Italians got to a 22-start, raced to a 40-7 first-quarter lead and breezed through to advance to the title match versus Canada, winner over China in the other game.
Team Phl and China, title protagonists in the 2015 FIBA Asia Championship, fight for third place at the close of the two-day Bologna meet.
Gilas’ consolation was outscoring NBA players Danilo Gallinari, Andrea Bargnani, Marco Balinelli and their teammates by five points in the second half.
“In the second half, you guys looked like a team. When you do what coach Tab asks you to do, it works. You are good players and when you play as a team, we will be successful,” said Gilas assistant coach Alex Compton in their huddle after the game.
“We played crazy on the first half, and we lose big when we do that,” said Baldwin. “You put in so much work in training camp learning our system. Don’t waste that by not even trying it out.”
Four days earlier over in Istanbul, Gilas dropped a 68-103 loss to Turkey. The two teams, both seeing action in the Manila OQT on July 5-10, meet in another tune-up game at the MOA Arena on July 1.
The Nationals have won only one warm-up game so far, beating Iran, 81-70, before their departure for their three-week European jaunt.
Gallinari, a 6-foot-10 forward playing for the Denver Nuggets in the NBA, went 7-of-8 from the field and top scored with 20 points for the Italians who simply overwhelmed the Filipinos.
The Italians, twice silver medal winners in the Olympics and twice EuroBasket champs, tore Gilas to shreds with a high-octane game marked by an impressive 63 percent (36-of-57) shooting as against the Filipinos’ 44-percent (26-of-59) clip.
June Mar Fajardo scored the first basket for Gilas on a fall-away jumper off Bargnani. Troy Rosario also made a field-goal basket while Calvin Abueva nailed three charities for the measly seven-point production of Gilas in the first quarter.
Andray Blatche incurred two early fouls but still paced the Filipinos with 21 points on 8-of-14 field goals. The 6-foot-10 naturalized player also collected six rebounds and four assists in 22:18 minutes of action.
Rosario and Terrence Romeo contributed 10 points apiece with both going 2-of-3 from beyond the arc.
In their final outing prior to the announcement of the Final 12, Abueva (4:04), LA Tenorio (5:41), Jeff Chan (9:15) and Marc Pingris (10:51) were the players who played the least minutes.