Despite their home-court advantage, Gilas Pilipinas was still not able to gain victory against the undermanned Iran in a 78-70 defeat for the FIBA Basketball World Cup Asian Qualifiers game that happened at the Mall of Asia (MOA) Arena on Monday, December 3.
Iran was led by Mohammad Jamshidi, who had to step up due to injuries of his teammates Hamed Haddadi and Samad Nikkhah Bahrami. Jamshidi garnered a total of 26 points, seven assists, and four rebounds. Jayson Castro tried to answer back for his team and to redeem himself from his three-game suspension after the brawl that occurred last July. He totalled 19 points, five rebounds, and two assists, followed by teammate Christian Standhardinger who contributed 17 points, eight rebounds, and two assists. However, it was not enough to win them the game, especially since the third-highest pointer Marcio Lassiter fouled out with 54.3 seconds remaining before the second half.
In the words of national team Head Coach Yeng Guiao about his players’ performance, “We still lacked maturity. We’re not cohesive as we want to be at this point. But the guys really tried their best.”
As a result of their loss, Gilas Pilipinas is currently at fourth place in Group 4 with a 5-5 record. Their most previous defeat was against Kazakhstan last Friday, November 30. Team Philippines fell behind Australia, Iran, and Japan, but they must be within the top two of their tier in order to participate in the FIBA World Cup in China next year. Their next games are against Qatar on February 21 and Kazakhstan again on February 24.
This is not the first time the Philippines fell to Iran on their homecourt, as they had also previously faced each other at the MOA Arena for the 2013 FIBA Asia Championship.