MANILA, Philippines – Gilas Pilipinas has a long way to go in the international basketball scene, as proven by their 68-84 loss to the Australia Boomers Thursday, February 22, in Melbourne.

The Philippine team hit the Boomers early, leading by as much as 5 points in the second quarter before breaking down in the final two periods. Australia proved why it was Asia’s reigning king, improving to 3-0 in Group B and handing Gilas its first loss in the 2019 FIBA World Cup Asian Qualifiers.

Gilas head coach Chot Reyes admitted his wards, mostly composed of PBA players, need to adapt to the international brand of basketball and separate themselves from the PBA style of play.

“The professional game back home is very different to the international FIBA game, which is not the case with other countries. In the other countries, the FIBA international game and the pro league game is very similar so that’s our problem,” said Reyes during the post-game presser.

Aside from losing the free throw battle, with Gilas missing 12 of their 19 shots compared to the Boomers missing only 7 of their 32 charities, the Philippine team also lost in terms of assists. Gilas had only 8 assists to Australia’s 16.

“When we come in, it’s very hard to kind of erase all of the habits and the things that they do with their mother teams in competitions like this,” Reyes said.

“It’s very different from the game we play back home.”

Although Gilas had its record tarnished to 2-1, Reyes sees a lot of positives with their matchup against Australia.

In Australia’s first two wins against Chinese Taipei and Japan, it had an average point differential of 31 points. Gilas Pilipinas shaved the point differential down to just 16 points. 

The Boomers averaged 54.5% from the field and 45.4% from 3-point range in the first window but against the Philippines, those numbers dropped to 41.3% from the field and 33.3% from long distance.

“We’re disappointed that we lost of course but we’re happy that we learned a lot from this ball game. Just playing the kind of quality players Australia has, the 40-minute pressure, handling that pressure, handling that physicality, I thought we grew as a team from this ball game,” Reyes said. 

Gilas has a chance to avenge their loss when they host Australia on July 2. 

Before that, Gilas looks to bounce back as they return home to face Japan on February 25 at the Mall of Asia Arena. – Rappler.com