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| Photo courtesy of The Philippine Star |
Three games into the FIBA Asia 2013 and it seems clear that we are not looking at the same Marcus Douthit of Gilas Pilipinas past. Averaging 12 points and 10 rebounds, Douthit needs to be more assertive in the paint if we are to make it through the next rounds and even win over top tier competition.
The scoring dip is unavoidable since the team is evenly spread out offensively and the system more guard-oriented. But the paltry rebounding coming from a 6"11 specimen who was hauling down close to 15-20 rebounds a game the last year or so with the same Gilas? Inexcusable. We'd let it go had there been a monstrous presence working the paint for Gilas and grabbing rebounds in the 10+ regions, but so far there's only Douthit and sometimes Marc Pingris and Gabe Norwood helping out from time to time but not consistently.
Being the biggest presence on the hardcourt, Douthit needs to demand for the basketball early or whenever we go through our usual offensive lulls. With our guards being given too much leeway in jacking up three pointers, we can't really blame Douthit for not wanting to work as hard. There's an old saying that you always need to reward your bigs for the effort they put down low. They get hit harder by bigger men and need to run the length of the floor at every possession (low post to low post as opposed to guards who run from one three point line to the other).
It's no secret that this might be Douthit's last tour of duty with Gilas Pilipinas (contract, age, Team MVP's commitment post-FIBA Asia), hopefully Big Daddy gets back into the groove of things and gives us that post presence we've been lacking the first three games (even in the Chinese Taipei game, Douthit was not as assertive finishing with a modest 16 points over counterpart Quincy David who stands 6"8 on tippy toes).
Being the biggest presence on the hardcourt, Douthit needs to demand for the basketball early or whenever we go through our usual offensive lulls. With our guards being given too much leeway in jacking up three pointers, we can't really blame Douthit for not wanting to work as hard. There's an old saying that you always need to reward your bigs for the effort they put down low. They get hit harder by bigger men and need to run the length of the floor at every possession (low post to low post as opposed to guards who run from one three point line to the other).
It's no secret that this might be Douthit's last tour of duty with Gilas Pilipinas (contract, age, Team MVP's commitment post-FIBA Asia), hopefully Big Daddy gets back into the groove of things and gives us that post presence we've been lacking the first three games (even in the Chinese Taipei game, Douthit was not as assertive finishing with a modest 16 points over counterpart Quincy David who stands 6"8 on tippy toes).
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