Gilas Pilipinas hopes to get home-crowd energy

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BY ADRIAN STEWART CO
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Sunday, February 25, 2018
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MANILA – Gilas Pilipinas will aim for a bounce-back win when it battles the struggling Japan in the 2019 FIBA World Cup Qualifiers tonight at the SM Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City. Game time is 7 p.m.

The Philippines is targeting a third win in four matches to stay on second place in Group B while Japan hopes for its first victory after dropping its first three matches.

Gilas head coach Vincent “Chot” Reyes is confident his players will be upbeat heading into the match against Japan after making a good account of themselves in their loss to Australia on Thursday.

“We’ll be playing at home, and we’re hoping to get adrenaline from the home crowd to compensate for the fatigue from this long flight from Australia,” Reyes said. “I’m sure our players will go all-out to recover from our loss to Australia.”

Chosen to suit up for the game are Andray Blatche, June Mar Fajardo, Japeth Aguilar, Gabe Norwood, Kiefer Ravena, RR Pogoy, Matthew Wright, Allein Maliksi, Calvin Abueva, Jeth Troy Rosario, Jayson Castro, and Jio Jalalon.

Japanese guard Daiki Tanaka said they are gunning for redemption after losing to the Filipinos during their first encounter in Tokyo late last year.

“We have to be aggressive from the start if we want to beat the Philippines,” said Tanaka. “That was our mistake during our first encounter – we allowed them to score many points at will.”

Aside from Tanaka, also expected to lead the charge for the Japanese squad are Makoto Hiejima, Joji Takeuchi, Ira Brown, Takatoshi Furukawa, Atsuya Ota, and Ryusei Shinomaya./PN
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