I rushed to the Ninoy Aquino Stadium tonight after a long day of work in the field just in time for the tipoff of Smart Gilas versus the Jordan national team. Gilas actually played well in the first half, taking a first quarter lead and keeping in step with the taller Jordanians at halftime.

But Jordan, the bronze medal winner at last year’s Fiba-Asia championship, stepped up its attack in the third quarter, taking a 58-50 lead at the end of the period. They turned the game into a laugher in the fourth quarter, using a 15-4 run to take a 19-point lead before Gilas rallied to make the score respectable, 83-75.

Like most of the other fans in the stadium, I ended up drenched after the game, adding insult to injury. It always sucks to watch a team with the words “Pilipinas” across the chest losing.

Some thoughts on the game:

• Marcus Douthit twisted his ankle in the second quarter, which could have affected his performance, even after he returned later. But my first impression is that he’s solid, but not as talented or explosive as CJ Giles.


• Gilas’ best five was its small-ball lineup with Jayvee Casio, Chris Tiu, Marcio Lassiter, Mac Baracael, and Greg Slaughter after Douthit went down. Lassiter, Baracael, and Casio hit several three-pointers to keep Gilas in the game.


• Slaughter was especially impressive. He wasn’t exactly smooth, but he played solid man-to-man and help defense, and ran the floor well. He even had a two-handed follow-up dunk on the break.


• On the flip side, I’m worried about the rest of the guys in the rotation. Chris Lutz looks like he hasn’t adjusted to the system yet, while Mark Barroca, Dylan Ababou, and Japeth Aguilar looked very tentative, like they were worried about being yanked from the game by Coach Rajko Toroman if they missed a shot or were late on a defensive rotation. It’s like they’re constantly looking over their shoulder to see if someone’s going to the scorer’s table to check in for them.


• Actually, Aguilar deserves his own bullet point. His confidence is just completely shattered, and Toroman looks like he’s much, much, much more comfortable having the 6’3” Baracael out there at power forward instead of the 6’10” Aguilar. With seconds to go before the end of the third quarter, Toroman took out Aguilar, and the coach started screaming at the player’s face, ignoring the rest of the action until the buzzer sounded. Japeth didn’t even look like he was listening anymore, just walking to the very end of the bench. He never returned, as Toroman went with the twin tower combination of Douthit and Slaughter.
  
  The Gilas management might want to consider shipping Aguilar out of the team, perhaps to Talk N Text as replacement for Kelly Williams. Maybe, with nurturing from Chot Reyes and Norman Black, Aguilar’s confidence can be nursed back to health and his immense potential could still be salvaged.


• Gilas needs to improve its zone offense; Jordan went on its big run by playing a 2-3 zone.


• If Williams and Ryan Reyes end up joining Smart Gilas, they’d be taking the minutes of Aguilar and Barroca, ironically the two guys we all thought would be carrying the team last year.


• Near the end of the game, Gilas got a steal and passed ahead to Jayvee Casio, who muffed a fastbreak floater in the lane against Rasheim Wright. Toroman got in his face and started screaming about Casio’s miss, gesturing wildly for a while about how Casio should have done it.
  
  There are two ways to look at this sequence. One is that Coach Rajko, ever the perfectionist, expects only the very best from his players. The other is that, well, that was a tough shot for Casio, and Toroman was being kind of a dick.


• If Jordan beats the Dongguan Leopards tomorrow, which they should, Gilas would have another shot at Jordan on Sunday.

Like I said a few posts back, I welcome any insight about the Smart Gilas squad, given that a lot of people really care about the promising team. A Smart Gilas insider (I know who he is, but for obvious reasons couldn’t disclose the identity) left a very interesting comment on my last post about the team. I’m republishing the most interesting parts of his comment here for more people to see:

Mac Baracael has been playing at the four position most of the time and he has been way more effective there when compared to Japeth. Japeth hasn't been rebounding too well and has been making good decisions. Plus he has not been playing good defense.

As for the PBA players, no coach Raijko is not interested in Asi at all. He was simply using him as a measure for the size that he needs. the only PBA player that he really wants (which i think finally came out publicly today) is kelly williams because he would be a perfect fit for the 4 position because of his rebounding and shooting.

As for the guards, Toroman is completely happy with all of them and he is just waiting for Lutz to come then his lineup for guards will be complete. I know a lot of people dont like Tiu, but when he averages the most minutes on the team, that says alot for a guy who is so short. Watching their games, it would seem that it is his fault when the guards score but truth is, he does everything coach Raijko asks him to on defense. he follows their defensive philosophy to the letter and often enough it is due to his teammates' mistakes in following their help side rules on defense that lead his man to score. He is just the leader of the team and sticks his team together. A true role player indeed.

Baracael has been great and Jvee Casio has been very good too. Barroca is actually not playing so well anymore and is getting berated at times for not passing the ball and setting the plays up properly.

Like I said in the previous post, I hadn’t seen enough of Smart Gilas in Dubai, so these are more general thoughts. That said, I was thoroughly impressed with the team’s performance, and like any other Pinoy basketball fan, I am hopeful that this is the start of the team’s steady climb.

Anyway, some of my thoughts, in bullets:

• Rajko Toroman is preparing his team to defend against bigger teams, and so far it’s working. It shouldn’t come as a surprise though, because the team did well too against bigger teams in the Fiba-Asia Champions Cup last year even when CJ Giles went down. Does anyone else find it funny that the strategy works for 6’11” American imports but not for 6’3” PBA forwards? Good thing Gilas won’t have to play against Richard Yee or Chad Alonzo in the Asian Games.


• Mac Baracael was the breakout star for Gilas in the tournament, especially in the last few games. I’m curious to know, from those who’ve been watching, what position he has been playing. Back in the Champions Cup, he saw a lot of action as an undersized power forward and stepped up big-time. Interestingly, Toroman’s wish list before the Dubai tournament if he had a choice of PBA players consisted of Kelly Williams, Gabe Norwood, Jared Dillinger, and Arwind Santos, all of whom play Baracael’s small forward position. I wonder if the list still looks like that today, or if he plans to go small-ball with a wingman playing the four-spot.


• Curiously, Toroman has name-dropped Asi Taulava in interviews after the Dubai tournament as someone who could fill in the team’s needs. Interesting.


• Chris Tiu has been quite a surprise. He’s really, actually good. He’s bulked up, and he’s surprisingly athletic—although PBA 2-guards still gave him a lot of trouble. It’s not as much of a problem against Middle Eastern club teams, who probably don’t run as many isolations and pick-and-rolls for their shooting guards. He gets a lot of cheap points in the Gilas half-court set, not just off jumpers, but backdoor cuts, screen-and-rolls, etc. He’s not a superstar, but he’s mind-numbingly solid. He’s just so steady, which was probably why he kept playing well in the PBA even as the rest of his teammates were struggling. I apologize to Tiu for calling him the next Alfie Almario.
  
  (This was actually originally part of an email exchange with Rafe Bartholomew, who suggested the title: “Giving credit where credit is Tiu.” Rafe’s book on Philippine basketball, “Pacific Rims” is now available for pre-order on Amazon.)


• Is Jayvee Casio the Franz Pumaren to Mark Barroca’s Hector Calma? And is this girl the Christine Jacob in this analogy? Does that make JR Cawaling the Elmer Reyes of this team? One thing I’m sure of: Magi Sison is definitely not the next Yves Dignadice.


• As Bill Simmons would say, the turd in the punch bowl is definitely Jamal Sampson, who has reportedly been kicked off the team. I thought it would be funny to go back and read Quinito Henson’s series of stories building up Sampson’s credentials before joining Gilas. And you know what? They’re fucking HILARIOUS.

I’m trying to find the right words to say about the very impressive win by Smart Gilas, which is hard, especially since after the game I went out drinking with j_myxx and NeekoBoi (and their awesome dad) of Patay ang Butiki, Gary of Basketball Exchange, and Toff Rada of toffrada.

Anyway, some tipsy thoughts, in bullet points:

• Rajko Toroman deserves all the credit in the world for the job he’s done. I finally figured out why he’s so good, and it’s not because he has arcane coaching technology or that he has a higher basketball IQ than our local coaches; it’s because he outworks them. It’s obvious in their product on the court. The crisp cuts, the pinpoint passing, the excellent communication, the perfect defensive rotations (with their tiny guards knowing where to funnel their men) – these were all drilled meticulously during boring, monotonous practice sessions. I can’t imagine Filipino coaches dealing with such minutiae. Well, there’s Tim Cone, but he’s American.


• This is all reflected in Chris Tiu’s post two weeks ago about playing for Toroman: “Practices are always intense. Coach T himself is very intense in every single practice, more so during games. Sometimes we fear for his blood pressure. He is never ever late and there's no excuse for being late. He runs the drills himself while the assistant coaches support him, not the other way around like in many professional teams. He is extremely particular with the details and making the right decisions in every play offensively and defensively. He is a perfectionist.”


• In the same post, Chris Tiu talked about how he gave Mark Barroca a rosary and a St. Josemaria Escriva prayer card from his mom after they talked about Barroca’s troubles.


• Also, Chris Tiu tweeted this the other night: “Was able to get free tickets to Air Supply tonight!! Can't wait to watch one of my favorite oldie bands live :)”


• By the way, James Yap and Chris Tiu were matched up for most of the game. Yap may have won the battle of the metrosexual showbiz stars, but Tiu won the war.


• I am trying to figure out how psyche myself into rooting for Chris Tiu during international competition. I’ll have it down by 2011, I guess.


• Before the game, I was exchanging emails with Rafe Bartholomew and I offered this caveat about Powerade Team Pilipinas: I thought a well-trained PBA team like, say, Alaska, could probably beat them at this point just because they haven’t been playing together, and that some of the guys are coming off long layoffs. True enough, Powerade’s play was uglier than Mark Barroca.


• Loved how Toroman has assigned roles to players: Barroca is the only one allowed to freelance on offense, Jayvee Casio has the greenlight to shoot jumpers off their double high-pick, the power forward (Japeth Aguilar or Aldretch Ramos) can shoot off pick-and-pops, and CJ Giles can go for a quick-hitting move on the left block. Also loved the cross-pick at the elbow for Dylan Ababou that freed him up time and again for a jumper from the top of the key.


• While tonight’s victory was great, I imagine Smart Gilas would have a tougher time against other PBA teams, whose coaches usually do scouting and custom preparation for other opponents. Unlike, say, Powerade coach Yeng Guiao, who just goes ahead and coaches with his balls.

In my previous post, I described the game in my previous post as a clash of basketball culture, and a defining moment for our collective basketball soul. Let me leave with a couple of quotes. First, from noted poet and basketball fan, Sherman Alexie:

I am a holistic basketball fan.

I love the wins and losses. I love the spectacular assists and idiotic turnovers. I love the poetry of teamwork and the pornography of jump shots taken too early in the shot clock.

Next, from the Free Darko philosophy, which appropriately captures what Rafe described as the unique essence of the Filipino game:

A large part of what we've deified here has been domination-through-style, the star as an existential force who asserts himself in the face of bland, functional models of play.

Shoals expounded:

Stars belong to everyone, even if you think your way into their palace of grandeur is unique in its sparkling twists and turns. To cement your preference in great and visible objects, there has to be another moody presence in the room, an equal and opposite reaction that allows you to define them as they define you.