GILAS Pilipinas achieved a rare accomplishment of multi-sweeps following an 82-77 victory over South Korea at the close of the FIBA Asia bubble play at the AUF Gym in Angeles, Pampanga Sunday.
Coach Tab Baldwin's youth brigade, including a number of PBA Gilas special draft selections, stood their ground one more time against the touted Koreans, scoring a twin-kill that completed their three-game sweep in the FIBA Clark bubble and a perfect 6-0 ride in the Continental qualifiers Pool A play.
Thus, Team Phl will be posted as among the top seeds in pool play in the FIBA Asia Cup proper in August in Indonesia.
Though both assured of a trip to Indonesia before the match, the Filipinos and the Koreans engaged in a fierce battle as expected, with the home team pulling through on clutch plays by Justine Baltazar, SJ Belangel and Dwight Ramos at endgame,
Ramos topscored with 19 points, including a big trey and two charities down the stretch as the Nationals repeated their 81-78 win in their previous tiff against the Koreans Wednesday.
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Previous to that, Gilas had dropped its last five matches versus its bitter rival in the region.
Kai Sotto, RJ Abarrientos and Jordan Heading contributed 10 points each as the Nationals bucked Ra Guna's hulking performance with 20 points and 13 rebounds.
The Nationals were just not to be outdone as they beat the South Koreans even on their strong point - three-point shooting.
Ramos sizzled with five treys and the Nationals drained a total of 14 out of 37 as against the Koreans' 10-of-35 clip.
The Koreans were right on their coattails when Ramos made an adorable catch-and-shoot three-pointer from way, way out and thus pumped up Gilas entering the last two minutes of the game.
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In the homestretch, Gilas found other guys coming through with big plays.
There's Will Navarro saving what had looked lost possession, and Baltazar completing a garbage-to-gold play on a breakaway jam to make it 79-75 with time down to 31.7 seconds.
Then the young Gilas players showed composure under gnawing pressure, thus, squeezing through for the rare back-to-back wins over the team that had been a source of heartaches and heartbreaks many times in the past for Team Phl. (SB)
