The Serbian Eagles were caught by surprise by the ferocity that the young Gilas Pilipinas showed during their Olympic Qualifying Tournament encounter in Belgrade early Thursday.
Coach Igor Kokoskov said their 83-76 beating of the Philippines was an ugly one, since they did not show that much aggression. The former Phoenix Suns coach also gave the Filipinos high praise of their gritty stand.
“The Philippines played as a team, and I want to congratulate them on that. They fought,” said Kokoskov.
“Another thing, I wish Jovic a speedy recovery. He left the match early. We want him back as soon as possible. We will know more after the review. We have a lot of new names, and some guys were missing. We didn’t react, we overthought. We defended instead of being in an attacking rhythm. It wasn’t nice again, but we won,” added Kokoskov.
Playing before a hometown crowd of over a thousand fans, Serbia scored its second straight victory at the Aleksandar Nikolic Hall on Thursday.
With Boban Marjanovic leading in double-double figures with 25 points and 10 rebounds, the reigning Olympic silver medalists advanced to the semifinals.
“The goal was to win the game. And it was not cute, it was not pretty,” said Kokoskov, a day after Serbia turned back the Dominican Republic, 94-76.
The Philippines, led by Ange Kouame with 17 points and 7 rebounds, kept the Eagles on their toes when they rallied back from a 34-45 halftime deficit.
Defying the court leadership of veteran point guard Milos Teodosic, Gilas went on the offensive in the fourth and moved within reach in the last 42 seconds of the third period off a floater from Kai Sotto, 62-67, following SJ Belangel’s assist.
“We did not show a good game, we did not have a rhythm that’s why we had a close game,” added team skipper Danilo Andjusic.
A triple from Carl Tamayo and a jumper from Mike Nieto at the 9:18 mark in the last period allowed Gilas to tie the match, 67-all.
This stunned the Serbs, who was not expecting the Philippines to put up such a big fight.
Then, the Serbs tried to remain ahead on the efforts of Marjanovic, Danilo Andjusic and Stefan Jovic, 73-67, in the last 5:26 of the third.
The Philippines kept up the pressure and took the lead for the first and last time at 74-73 off a 6-0 run which Carl Tamayo, Jordan Heading and Rhon Jay Abarrientos touched off with 3:50 left.
From there, Marjanovic sunk eight of nine points during a 9-2 run, behind passes from Teodosic to move away, 82-76, in the last eight seconds.
Coach Tab Baldwin said the team made an effort to keep an eye on Teodosic during the game. And their plan worked well until the fourth quarter.
“Milo Teodosic presented a lot of problems, and his plays were tough for us to handle. We changed our defense, and started on the screen, trying to take the ball away from his hands. And that was effective to some degree,” said Baldwin.
Heading, the youngest player in the Gilas roster, scored 13 points, including four triples.
One of Heading’s treys saw Gilas moving to within a point, 72-73, with 4:27 left.
The Philippines will now prepare for the Dominican Republic early Friday, with a win putting them in the semifinals as well.