AS solid as Team Philippines' play was in its 81-73 defeat to Iran on Thursday in the 2019 Fiba World Cup Asian qualifiers, it probably wasn't a good sign that the bigs had a better shooting night than the team's top guns.
Asi Taulava, who went 1-of-3 from beyond the arc (good for 33 percent), and Beau Belga, who shot 1-of-5 from rainbow country (20-percent),fared better from the field percentage-wise compared to the team's guards.
The Nationals shot an abysmal 5-of-28 clip from downtown, with no one else from the team drilling in more than one triple.
Expected to give the Philippines a much needed offensive boost, Alex Cabagnot and Marcio Lassiter both went cold as the San Miguel pair combined for 2-of-14 shooting from beyond the three-point field arc.
Lassiter's shooting was more than off, going only 1-of-9 from the field in his return to national team duty.
Paul Lee also failed to convert on his pair of three-point attempts before exiting the game with an apparent ankle sprain, and so did Gabe Norwood who missed both of his tries. Allein Maliksi also muffed his lone attempt of the game from beyond the arc.
The only player who had a positive shooting percentage from deep was Scottie Thompson, who converted his lone three-point attempt which led to his coach Tim Cone, who is on commentary duty, gushing about his improved outside sniping.
Iran didn't do much better, going 7-of-22 from three-point land. However, two of those triples came when the home team made the separation late in the final quarter.
Now Yeng Guiao can only pray their shooting gets better in the home game against Qatar on Monday.
Out of the 16 teams in the qualifiers, the Filipinos rank 12th in three-point shooting, making only 6.4 out of 22.6 attempts per game, good for 28.5-percent.
Good thing, though, is that the Philippine artillery is about to be reloaded for the next game as gunner Matthew Wright joins the crew for the Qatar game after serving his one-game suspension.
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