Gilas Pilipinas were hoping for the mother of all upsets versus Australia to keep their 2025 FIBA Asia Cup campaign going. But the Aussies were having none of it. They scored the first six points of the two nations’ quarterfinal showdown and never looked back, pummeling their counterparts to the tune of an 84-60 beating.
Justin Brownlee converted a four-point play after that 6-0 Australia start to make it 6-4, and that was the closest Gilas Pilipinas would get to the Aussies, who scored the next 10 points to take their first double-digit lead, 16-4, before finishing the opening frame with a 29-12 cushion.
Tim Cone was admittedly disappointed with his team’s performance, though by the way he talked about Australia postgame, it sure sounded like Gilas Pilipinas didn’t have a chance to begin with.
“I didn’t like our performance tonight. I didn’t think we stepped up as much as we wanted to. No doubt the Australian athleticism and length… even though you see it on video, when you go out there and you’re playing against it on the court, you realize that they’re very superior,” Cone told reporters. “We just had a hard time staying in front of them, we had a hard time challenging their threes, and they moved the ball really well and got shots up real quick…”
Indeed, the Aussies just looked bigger, faster, quicker, and more athletic than all their Filipino counterparts, save maybe for AJ Edu. They looked better, too, in every facet of basketball—from shooting to defense to everything else.
Nothing Worked for Gilas Pilipinas
In fairness to Cone, beating a team whose players are bigger, longer, faster, quicker, and better is a Herculean task to say the least—and would take either doing something very special or implementing a well-thought-out game plan (preferably both). Gilas Pilipinas had a game plan all right, which was to slow the game down and execute, but Australia thrashed it rather easily.
“We tried to keep the game under a certain type of tempo. We tried to get it into a more execution-type game rather than an up and down, and they just overwhelmed that idea. We couldn’t do it,” rued Cone on his team’s inability to carry out his slow-the-pace-down strategy.
Then again, that’s mostly a credit to the Aussies as well, who stuck to their strengths and just punished what was arguably an inferior adversary.
Cone was later asked about Gilas Pilipinas’ 8-for-33 clip from downtown, which would’ve been worse had Kevin Quiambao not shot 5-for-8 from three territory. His response only echoed all the good things he already said about the Aussies—and all the ways they were better than the Filipinos.
“Australia happened. They defended extremely well, they’re very, very athletic, they’re quick to the ball. A couple of times we were able to get by guys and they were able to collapse and get the blocked shots,” Cone pointed out. “We weren’t getting the ball inside, so we tried to live off the perimeter… They were on every one of our shots. I don’t want to make excuses, but we’re not the only team this happens to when you play Australia.”
Yep, Australia is superior that way. And it’s no surprise they’ve won the FIBA Asia Cup two consecutive times already and are looking at a third straight gold.
