The Philippine national men’s basketball team tries to pick up the pieces and move on from its humiliating defeat to South Korea as it continues its 2017 FIBA Asia Cup campaign against host Lebanon in the classification round on Saturday at Nouhad Nawfal Sports Complex in Beirut.
Gilas Pilipinas, which suffered a 118-86 defeat to the Koreans in the quarterfinals to bow out of title contention, looks to beat the Lebanese to have a shot at fifth place–an unfamiliar territory for the program which had previously reached at least the semifinals of the tournament’s past three editions.
Lebanese star Fadi El Khatib should definitely on top of Gilas Pilipinas’ defensive gameplan in this one. Despite being the oldest player in the tournament at 37, he is still leading all scorers with 23 a game to go along with 5.4 rebounds and four assists per outing.
Gabe Norwood, Calvin Abueva and RR Pogoy will surely have their hands full guarding El Khatib who failed to steer Lebanon to a win against Iran in the quarterfinals.
But Gilas Pilipinas will miss a vital cog in its remaining games as big man Christian Standhardinger already left the team to join the Philippine squad in the Southeast Asian Games in Malaysia which tips off this weekend.
