GILAS Pilipinas is off to a shaky start in its Asian Games gold-medal defense, losing to Bahrain, 89-85, on Friday afternoon at the Aichi International Arena in Nagoya, Japan.
The Philippines lost its first game of the 20th Asiad after having no answers for naturalized players JaKarr Sampson and Elijah Thomas, with the duo exploding -during Bahrain's critical third-quarter run.
Calvin Oftana, a late replacement for injured naturalized Filipino Justin Brownlee, took over the scoring cudgels with 31 points, but aside from him and Adrian Nocum, the rest of the team struggled on offense.
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Things turned from bad to worse for Gilas when Nocum rolled his right ankle after a layup at the 1:51 mark of the fourth period, and his availability for the next game on Saturday against Kazakhstan is now in question.
Gilas goes up and down
Oftana got the Philippines out of a funk after a 0-8 start, tying the game on a layup that was followed by Justine Baltazar's own short stab for Gilas' first lead of the game, 43-41.
But Bahrain scored eight unanswered points capped off by back-to-back threes by Uros Ilic and Sampson to end the first half ahead, 49-43, and never relinquishing momentum from there.
Bahrain then feasted in the paint, with Sampson and Thomas outscoring all of Gilas, 27-18, in the third quarter.
Sampson finished with 24 points and 13 rebounds, Thomas had 20 points, and Mustafa Rashed also helped set the tone with 20 points on 4-of-11 shooting from threes.
Nocum wound up with 14 points, seven rebounds, and five assists before his injury, Baltazar added 10 of his own, but the Filipinos sorely missed Robert Bolick, who went scoreless in missing all of his five attempts.
Oftana was the lone bright spot from deep, where he went 6-of-9, but in all, Gilas shot 29-percent (10-of-34) from that distance, compared to Bahrain’s efficient 43-percent (12-of-28).
The scores:
Bahrain 89 – Sampson 24, Thomas 20, Rashed 20, Alhaddad 7, Buallay 5, Alderazi 5, Haji 3, Ilic 3, Juma 2, Ajukwa 0.
Philippines 85 – Oftana 31, Nocum 14, Baltazar 10, Trollano 9, Arana 8, Ganuelas-Rosser 5, Abarrientos 4, Lucero 4, Barefield 0, Ahanmisi 0, Bolick 0, Bates 0.
Quarters: 29-21; 49-43; 76-61; 89-85.
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