Playing against Lebanon last February 24, Gilas Pilipinas emerged victorious in front of their home crowd, and these numbers tell the story.
As the sixth and final window of the FIBA World Cup qualifiers begin on our turf, our national team, Gilas Pilipinas, gave us quite a bit to get excited about following their victorious performance against our recent rivals in Lebanon. And while no one play or stat is more important than the other, there are some figures that stood out in terms of their impact as to why the result of the game was what it was.
Here are five of them.
17
This is the number of three-point baskets that Gilas made out of 36 attempts (47.2%).
While Lebanon also made an equally impressive 14/28 (50%) from beyond the arc, it was the Philippine team’s baskets that set the tone from the get-go. Put another way, Gilas was protecting and growing their lead with their 3-point makes, while Lebanon was hoisting them to catch up.
37 Minutes and 23 Seconds
Out of the entire 40-minute match, Gilas was in the lead for this amount of time. There was only one lead change that happened at the very early stages of the game when the score was 3-2 in favor of Lebanon.
As soon as Gilas overtook their rivals, they never really looked back.
13 (points on a perfect 5/5 shooting clip)
Much has been made about the absence of Kai Sotto, Japeth Aguilar, and our other bigs.
However, Mason Amos delivered an incredible debut performance which quickly took the spotlight as far as the discussion for our frontcourt goes. Fans celebrated as they watched him stroke from deep again and again and again.
31
This was the most fluid Gilas has played in the entire World Cup Qualifiers tournament.
More technical fans can see and appreciate the degree of trust that the team has with one another as there was a certain fluidity and confidence in the way they moved. In some instances, there were even passes being made before a player is at the spot to receive it — which only points to the fact that there’s a level of familiarity and understanding among the players as to what’s expected from each one of them.
Note: Meanwhile, Lebanon only had 17 assists (with 15 turnovers) which really paints the picture of how much they sorely missed their vaunted playmaker, Wael Arakji.
11/12
This is the number of players that scored for Gilas Pilipinas — Thirdy Ravena added to the scoring total with only 0:27 remaining on the game clock.
Only Calvin Oftana wasn’t able to register points on the board as he only saw very limited minutes and attempted just one shot. The balanced attack that really made the puzzle extra difficult for Lebanon to solve can also be characterized further by looking at the fact that six of our players scored in double digits.
Images from FIBA Basketball.
Related Stories:
4 Things That Caught Our Eye from the Gilas Heartbreak vs Jordan
5 reasons why Jordan Clarkson is the cool dad
How much is it to watch the 2023 FIBA World Cup?