TIANJIN, China: End of the road.
The Philippines ran into a solid, great wall in Jordan Friday afternoon and lost, 81-70, to see its Fiba-Asia qualifying campaign for a World Championship slot come to a screeching halt at the Tianjin Gymnasium here.
Rasheid Wright, a naturalized Jordanian who leads everyone in scoring here, tossed in 15 of his 21 points in the second half as Jordan repeated over the Philippines to make the Final Four for the first time opposite defending champion Iran.
The Iranians survived the loss of top point guard Mahdi Kamrany to a hip injury at the end of the third period to hammer out a 75-65 victory over Qatar and stay on track toward a second straight championship.
It was a loss that was not that hard to swallow for the Philippines, labeled as the decided underdogs in the match. But the Filipinos worked their butts out and kept it close, not unlike the last time they clashed when they were beaten by 31 points.
“We knew right from the start that we were the terrible underdogs,” Philippine coach Yeng Guiao told a handful of Filipino sportswriters. “We tried to keep the game as close as possible and maybe get the chance to win it in the end.
“We will still look at it (loss) in a positive way, because we feel that we are still improving,” he added. “But we are disappointed because we felt that this was our best chance (to play Jordan) to get to the Final Four.” The best that the Filipinos could hope for after the loss is a fifth place finish, needing two wins to pull it out. Still, being guaranteed of at least eighth spot for making the quarterfinals is already a marked improvement.
The last time that the PBA sent an all-pro team to this tournament was in 2007 in Tokushima, Japan, where it finished ninth under Chot Reyes. There, it was also Jordan which eliminated the Filipinos.
“I want to give a lot of credit to the Philippine national team for playing so tough,” starting Jordan guard Osama Daghles said. “But I want to give more credit to my teammates for hanging tough against such a determined team like the Philippines.”
Daghles finished with nine points and the same number of assists, being one of the thorns that hurt the Filipinos along with 6-foot-10 forward Ayman Idais, who tossed in five triples in the first half on the way to 20 points.
Gabriel Norwood led the Filipinos with 11 markers, his energy in the fourth quarter helping cut what was once a 15-point deficit to as few as five heading into the final six minutes.
Cyrus Baguio connected on a 2-on-1 break and made it 63-68 with 6:06 left. But the Jordanians came out of a timeout and scored seven unanswered points to put the game away, 75-63, with 3:24 to play.
