Gilas vs Chinese Taipei: Aug 3

First of all, let's give credit where it is due. Taipei played with a lot of discipline. They didn't give up even if they were down big in the 4th. And, of course, shot efficiently well from outside as usual.

Still, it's a hard pill to swallow when you're up by double digits in the 4th only to allow a team to come back. The crowd gave Gilas a lot of energy. This Gilas team is building a reputation of playing hot and cold and feeds off emotion from the crowd to bring out the energy. Unfortunately, this comes with its disadvantages. For one, if you rely on energy and shooting to give you the W, you will have stretches where you can't score as we saw in the 4th quarter.  This type of game requires a deep rotation, and if any player is unable to contribute, the main guys suffer. In a 3-minute stretch at the start of the 4th , David, Chan and Ping failed to bring it. By the time starters Jason, Marcus and Gabe came back in, the lead was close to a basket and the main guys looked spent.  They did not get enough rest to bring in the energy to finish the game.

It also comes down to defense, defense, defense. Taipei scored close to 30 points in the 4th. Again, when you rely on energy to play defense and you get tired, you are really at the mercy of a good shooting team, which Taipei just showed us.

In New Zealand, the player rotation was generally: Castro, David, Gabe, Ranidel and Marcus started (when Marcus rested Junmar was the starting center). The second unit consisted of LA, Larry, Chan, Ping and Japeth.  Alapag normally finished the games with Castro at the backcourt. Now here is the thing, Gary David played well as a starter in NZ and gave Chan and Larry the role as sparks off the bench. But when Gary fails to deliver it forces Chot to go with Larry or Chan early. The problem with that is we lose our bench (our  mircowaves off the bench). By using the 2nd unit early, it also tires them out with nothing left to finish off the game. As we witnessed yesterday vs Taipei, Chot took the blame for not rotating his players well, not leaving enough in the tank to finish. But to a certain extent, he didn't have much choice as David, LA and Chan failed to contribute.  That left Chot no choice but to leave Larry and Gabe in for extended minutes.