Jordan continues big game dominance over PHL, wins 75-61

Another all-or-nothing, high stakes FIBA Asia match versus Jordan, another heartbreak for the Philippine men's basketball team.

For the third straight FIBA tournament, the Jordanians crushed all hopes of a gold or silver medal finish for team Philippines behind its naturalizes back court duo of Sam Daghlas (16 points) and Rasheim Wright (22). Throw in sweet shooting big man Zaid Abbas (14) who forced our frontline to guard well outside the shaded area and what you have is a recipe for a London dream-crusher.

Marcus Douthit (21) and JVee Casio (15) carried the fight for the hapless Philippine team that failed to receive additional firepower from its other guys. Marcio Lassiter, who has been the catalyst for this team in the second round, shot an abysmal 0/10 and was only good for 2 points the entire night. Jimmy Alapag, another fire starter and old reliable, went 0/6.

If anything, the Jordanians were able to solve the PHL puzzle by forcing it to play from the outside-in through its zone defense. Time and again PHL would bring the ball down facing a simple man-to-man defense, but once the first pass was made, the Jordanians would switch to a zone.

The zone took away Douthit's face-to-the-basket forays in the paint, neutralized our slashers and pretty much left our shooters free. On a good day, with names like Lassiter, Alapag, Lutz and Casio, you'd expect a blow-out. But it just wasn't our night, and no one outside of Douthit could play efficient, smart basketball.

My only beef is that perhaps Toroman could've gone with a different look, say more minutes for gung-ho slashers Mark Barroca and Mac Baracael (whose famed pesky defense could've stifled Wright or Daghlas at the very least). Sadly, their minutes went to mismatched shooting guard, 5"11, Chris Tiu who plays with 100% heart, but is not a special basketball player on either ends of the court.

Why? I don't know *cough* because he's MVP's boy *cough*

That being said, what does this loss mean for Philippine basketball?

Well, there's still 3rd place to be won tomorrow versus the loser of the China-Korea match that's currently on-going. The 2nd and 3rd placers in this tournament will qualify for a "last trip to London" FIBA tournament which may or may not be open to other teams outside of Asia (which would pretty much mean that it's almost impossible to win that one).

But in hindsight, 3rd place isn't all that bad. Not for this team anyway. The mission was never to make it to London (that would be the dream). The mission, right from the onset, was to re-establish the country as a basketball powerhouse. You'd be hard pressed to argue that this team, from Rajko Toroman to the last guy on the bench (Charles Tiu-- PHL's poster boy of an assistant coach), were able to do just that.

So congrats Pilipinas for a great showing and just lay it all out there tomorrow!