Quick, versatile Philippine 5 favored vs injury-hit Qataris

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines has assembled a quick guard-laden lineup with a bit under-sized but mobile frontcourt that is looking forward to run to the ground an injury-riddled Qatar team in their initial matchup in the FIBA World Cup qualifiers at the Smart Araneta Coliseum on Monday night.

“I feel quickness is on our side. We feel we can play a sustained running game, break them down one on one because we have the quickness to do that. We’ll try to exploit that all game long,” said national coach Yeng Guiao.

Team Phl has really appeared to become a lot quicker as Japeth Aguilar, Matthew Wright and Stanley Pringle came on board to take over from Raymond Almazan, Allein Malicsi and Christian Standhardinger.

Alex Cabagnot, Paul Lee, Scottie Thompson, Gabe Norwood, Beau Belga, Poy Erram, Marcio Lassiter, Ian Sangalang and Asi Taulava are the other players at Guiao’s disposal in their 7:30 p.m. game versus Qatar.

To be missed is the crowd support as the game will be played behind closed doors as part of FIBA’s sanction on Team Phl in the aftermath of the Gilas-Australia brawl.

Guiao and his troops are nonetheless ecstatic to play on home front.

“I’m confident the team is prepared. The team is really glad to be home, glad to play at home even if there’s no crowd. We’ll miss the crowd but it’s surely a lot better than playing outside the country which we experienced in Tehran,” said Guiao.

Team Phl is tipped to bounce back from back-to-back losses against Australia and Iran. The odds are stacked on the Filipinos’ side against a Qatar side minus a number of key players hit by injuries.

Clinton Johnson III, Mansour Atif Elhadary and Abdulrahman Mohamed Saad are among Qatari top guns with health woes.

Guiao, however, said they would focus on what Qatar can do and not on the possible weaknesses of Team Qatar.

“We want to focus on what the rest of the team can do. We prepared for that. They still have weapons, four or five guys that can hurt us. If we are overconfident or take them for granted, this team can still hurt us,” said Guiao.

“They’re still very dangerous because they’re bigger than us in all positions. The size differential is dangerous,” Guiao added.

But Guiao is confident they have formed a lethal team.

“We have Matthew Wright and Japeth back. We missed them in the early games. If we had them early from the Asian Games, maybe they could help us a lot. But it’s water under the bridge. We look forward to a new chapter in the episodes, stories of the national team,” said Guiao.

Wright will be an added weapon as a shooter while Aguilar can well provide the size, length, and the inside and defensive presence.

Then there’s Pringle who provides a new dimension in the national team.

“Stanley is taking over the naturalized position over Christian. That’s really a very difficult, agonizing decision with the way Christian played not only against Iran but consistently playing from the Asian Games,” said Guiao.

“But Stanley brings a lot to the game. He creates a lot of situations for his teammates. He can score, he can defense, pass. And so we will miss Christian but Stanley can give us a different dimension. Whatever we lose in Christian not playing, we’ll get some other way with Stanley,” Guiao added.