PHL suffers "meaningless" setback versus China; loses 60-75

As painful as it was to watch Japeth Aguilar, a 6"9 human pogostick that's the first of his kind in the Philippines, bite to China's Wang Zhi Zhi's slow and almost predictable pump fakes time and again, we should still be proud of the way our team lost by making an effort to narrow the gap in the last quarter and a half.

The story of the game was simple, the Chinese were taller and just better basketball players than the guys we had on the floor. I saw Mark Barroca break his ankles twice to a tall Chinese point guard which I've never seen in my entire life a Chinese do against a Filipino PG.

Forget that Chris Lutz and Marcio Lassiter continue to ride the sideline because of all the backstage politics in the FIBA Asia tournament. We're here, we have 10 guys, five better than the stripped Qatar team who continue to disgrace themselves (hey, what did you expect, most of your guys are from the African continents you cheats!) so play on.

To win, our team needs to continue to play smart. The double high post screen worked in the second half regardless of the combinations, so maybe Rajko Toroman was keeping his cards close to his chest a bit and didn't want to show off as much. Forget driving into the paint against China because 1) they're quick to block shots and 2) we don't have the type of players for the job (this is where a healthy Jayson Castro or a MVP employee like Sol Mercado would've done great wonders but hey).

Moving on to the players; Jimmy Alapag controlled the pace of the game but was clearly bothered by the Chinese guards' length. This isn't like the previous years when we could count on our guards to outrun the Chinese players. Those young, lanky guys could move!

JVee Casio continues to look bothered by his injury and was clearly the target of the Chinese offense and defense. Everytime Casio held the basketball, two taller defenders were in his grill. And when he was playing defense, whoever he was guarding would almost always get the ball and freed to call for isolation.

Chris Tiu played with great heart, but left his brain in the dug-out. He was always one of the smarter players on the roster, but I guess that's what having to box-out bigger guys and not getting any relief via substitution does to a man.

Ranidel de Ocampo, while still being a frustrating example of a skilled Filipino big man with little drive/ heart (along the lines of his brother Yancy, Marlou Aquino and before him, Jun Limpot), made a brave stand in trying to guard the Chinese veteran Zhi Zhi with some degree of success. Of course, when he was asked to guard the equally tall yet ultra athletic and high-skilled Yi Jian Lian, there was nothing RDO could do but eat a plateful of jumpers from both corners of the floor.

Marnel Baracael is a hero to all kanto boy basketball players around. The guy plays hard, doesn't complain (specially to his coach who forces him to guard players several inches taller than he is and play out of position), doesn't flop (hello Ronald Tubid) and always looks to win games. Yan ang pusong Pinoy!

Kelly Williams enjoyed some success versus Yi owing to his aggressiveness and superior athleticism, but was just outmatched height-wise. Asi Taulava, in my book, is a hero. He's a man of limited basketball skill and IQ, but he's been playing hard for flag and country for so long that I want him to win big this time around or before he retires.

Marcus Douthit was pretty much out-finessed by the Chinese bigs. I'm pretty sure he could hold his own versus Zhi Zhi, but every time he'd make a move to the basket via a spin or crossover, Yi or another tall Chinese defender would be in the area to take a swipe on the ball or block his path.

At some point, you'd have to feel sorry for Douthit and have someone give him a purple heart or something for playing so hard for this country.

That being said, the only way you can really beat China is if you have guys who are bigger and stronger (Iran) which we won't have at least until another couple of years when our brothers and sisters marry into European/ Middle Eastern countries. Yes, we will definitely have our day in the sun!

Seriously now, as a consolation since we are still in group play, the loss won't matter and we will still move on to the next round (granted that we win over the Bader Malabes-led Bahrain squad-- which we should, because I will switch sports, allegiance and sexuality if we can't win by over ten points against that team).