It was a tale of two halves on Sunday at the SM Mall of Asia Arena as Australia turned on the jets in the second half to turn a close 38–33 contest into a 93–66 beatdown. It was such a thorough dismantling that Gilas Pilipinas coach Tim Cone could only describe it as “painful”—a description shared by Dwight Ramos.
“It was a very painful second half. Painful to be a part of, painful to watch, especially being in front of our home crowd. You know, we wanted to be better than that,” Cone said of Gilas’s putrid second half, where they scored 33 points but surrendered 53 to the Boomers.
“I agree with Coach,” Ramos would say later. “The first half, we played good defense. The game was close, you know, and then going into the second half, you know, we just had to step it up a little bit.”
Gilas Stays in Lockstep with Australia in the First Half
Indeed, Gilas played well in the first 20 minutes of action. The nationals mostly contained the Boomers’ offense, contesting shots, and not giving easy looks. They even hit some threes—6 of them, to be exact—to stay close throughout.
“I felt like we should have had the lead at the end of the first half. We just didn’t make some of the shots…” Cone pointed out. “We went down by 5 at halftime, but we felt we had a good shot. We came out in the third quarter, made a turnover right off the bat, and they turned it into a 3-point play. And suddenly, you know, they were off to the races.”
The play Cone was alluding to was a backcourt violation off a bad pass by Scottie Thompson, which Mitch Creek later turned into a triple for Australia. It proved to be the story of the second half: Gilas not converting and the Boomers coming back down and making their shots.
“I guess they just came out with more energy, and a couple of our mistakes led to their threes, and then they were just on a roll from there,” Ramos added. “So, it got away from us… it’s a bad feeling to lose by that much at home…”
The brutal beatdown concluded an 0–2 homestand for Gilas, which also lost to New Zealand on Thursday. They are now 2-2 in the FIBA World Cup Asian Qualifiers.
