BULACAN, Philippines – The Philippine 3×3 bets had a terrific start versus favored Brazil, but the lack of end-game poise did them in against Mongolia in the FIBA 3×3 World Cup on Saturday, June 9. 

“The physicality is not the problem. The problem is the inexperience we have,” said Gilas’ Christian Standhardinger. 

The nationals had a shot against 2017 FIBA 3×3 Asia Cup champion Mongolia, but some late miscues doomed their bid for a second straight upset.

“Kaya sana yung Mongolia kaso lang nadali sa flagrant foul, pumapasok din yung mga two-points nila. Ang dami nun,” lamented Roger Pogoy. 

(We could have beaten Mongolia but we were at the losing end with the flagrant fouls and the Mongolians were scoring two-pointers. They were so many.) 

An unsportmanlike foul in 3×3 awards the opposing team two free throw attempts. 

The Philippines got slapped two crucial unsportmantlike fouls on Troy Rosario and Pogoy, which some deemed debatable as he went for the ball behind Tsenguunbayar Gotov, but ended up hitting the Mongolian as he was attempting to score.  

Rosario also got hurt when Tserenbaatar Ehktaivan fell off balance and pushed the Talk N’ Text forward onto the floor, which saw the referees tightening their calls the rest of the game.

“I thought there was a stretch when Troy got hurt and the referees started calling the deliberate foul, I thought we lost a bit of our composure,” said Gilas 3×3 head coach Ronnie Magsanoc. 

The Philippines– currently ranked 4th in Pool C –  must win against group leader Canada and 3rd placer Russia to secure one of the top two slots in the pool and adavance to the quarterfinals.

“We have to be better, we have to learn to play the 3×3 way. It’s all a part of the learning curve, and hopefully we will know how to perform better pagdating sa dulo (at the end),” said Magsanoc. – Rappler.com