Jazz's Ingles, Bogdanovic among Gabe Norwood's toughest NBA player matchups

MANILA, Philippines — Rain or Shine's Gabe Norwood has faced more than a handful of NBA players in his career as an international cager with Gilas Pilipinas.

Recently, the former George Mason University cager listed some of the top matchups he ever faced on the NBA Philippines site.

Among those on the 36-year-old's list is Filipino-American Jordan Clarkson's Utah Jazz teammates Joe Ingles and Bojan Bogdanovic.

Ingles, who plays for the Australia Boomers, stood out to the Gilas Pilipinas main stay because of his basketball IQ and competitiveness.

"Joe Ingles ranks high on my list of guys who just purely enjoys playing the game of basketball but could remain locked in and ultra competitive," Norwood wrote.

"He played his role perfectly and his IQ stood out to me. Ingles seemed to always make the right play," he added.

Bogdanovic, meanwhile, who plays for Croatia, presented a physical challenge to Norwood -- proving to be more taxing than most of his other matchups.

"It was clear that this matchup presented a new challenge. The lesson came early in the game when I realized how physically strong Bogdanovic was, which he used to his advantage," Norwood narrated.

"I knew right from there that going up against Bojan was going to be more physically taxing," he concluded.

The list also included the back-to-back reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo who suits up internationally for Greece.

Norwood had faced off with Antetokounmpo before the latter had been drafted into the NBA. Though Gilas didn't see the Greek Freak score a ton of points, Norwood still saw how he affected the game.

"[Antetokounmpo] was disruptive on the defensive end with his ridiculous wing span, and his ability to aggressively run the floor made him a threat on every change of possession," said Norwood.

Completing the list was Francisco Garcia of Dominican Republic and Nicolas Batum of France.

Notable mentions also included Cleveland Cavaliers Cedi Osman, Dante Exum and Andres Nocioni.