MANILA, Philippines – Gilas Pilipinas 3×3 absorbed its first loss in the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, and fell short of an outright berth in the quarterfinals on Friday, September 29.

The Philippines succumbed to top seed Mongolia, 21-12, in its final game of the group stage in the men’s 3×3 basketball competition at the Deqing Geographic Information Park Basketball Court.

Winning all of their first three games, the Filipinos were sent crashing back to earth and placed third in Pool A with a 3-1 record.

Mongolia raced to a 7-1 lead highlighted by 5 points from Batzaya Tsermaa and never looked back on the way to earning a quarterfinal spot rewarded only to the No. 1 team from each of the four groups.

Tsermaa chalked up 8 points, while Ulzii-Orshikh Myagmarsuren delivered 7 points in the dominant win that saw the Mongolians wrap it up with still 2:20 minutes to spare.

Bismarck Lina topscored with 7 points for the Philippines, which missed the scoring contributions of usual suspects Bryan Sajonia and John Rey Pasaol as they got limited to just 2 points each.

Justine Sanchez had 1 point in the losing effort.

Gilas 3×3 finished with the same 3-1 card as Mongolia and Chinese Taipei but lost the tiebreaker after totaling just 63 points in four games.

Mongolia clinched the top spot with a total of 75 points, while Chinese Taipei landed at second place with 73 points.

Still in the running, the Philippines battles the second-placer from Pool D – either Qatar or Kazakhstan – for a place in the quarterfinals on Saturday, September 30. – Rappler.com