For Gilas Pilipinas, big win over Hong Kong just the start of redemption

CHANGSHA, China - After suffering an upset against Palestine in its opening game, Gilas Pilipinas bounced back big time in their second match with a 101-50 rout of Hong Kong to claim its first victory in the 2015 FIBA Asia Championship here on Thursday.

It was the first step of the national team's campaign to recover from their sorry 75-73 loss against the Palestinian newcomers, said coach Tab Baldwin.

"We didn't get that game out of our system yet. We still have to do that. The expectation from the coaching staff is that that was just a start of the road of redemption from yesterday," he told reporters after the game.

Gilas was coming off a successful buildup after a silver medal finish in the William Jones Cup and gold in the MVP Cup, but some basketball pundits remained lukewarm about the team's chances to bring home the gold medal in the FIBA Asia.

The defeat against the unheralded Palestine only strengthened that opinion, and Baldwin wants to change that perception as the tournament progresses.


The American-Kiwi coach, however, instructed his players not to read anything from social media after the loss to keep their morale up and focus on their next game.

"Alam namin sobrang na-down namin 'yung mga kababayan natin so what we did is to respond well," said team captain Dondon Hontiveros. "Hindi na namin inisip kung gaano kasama 'yung talo."

Hong Kong copied Palestine's tactic and ran the zone defense against Gilas, but this time the team handled it better after shooting 14 three-pointers at a 41 percent clip.

"Today we proved as well that Jayson (Castro) can hit shots, Dondon (Hontiveros) can hit shots, Andray (Blatche) hit some shots. We proved that we can be dangerous against zone as well," Baldwin said. "I suspect that as we move forward to this tournament, teams will think twice before they zone us."

The team will face Kuwait on Friday for their final game in the first round. - JST, GMA News