Team Philippines trailed by as much as 16 points in the second period in their closed-door encounter last night against Qatar at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
And when the Qataris began misfiring with their outside shooting in the second half, the Philippines got big plays from Japeth Aguilar's inside game to pull off a 92-81 win last night in their second game in the second round of the FIBA Asia World Cup 2019 Qualifiers.
The Qataris took charge in the first half with their three-pointers, behind Mohd Yousuf Mohamed, Tanguy Ngombo and Nasser Khalifa Al-Rayes, converting seven of 13 attempts to take a 52-39 lead.
But the Qataris lost the shooting touch midway in the second half, where Aguilar suddenly erupted for 10 of his 16 points.
The big efforts of Aguilar, who just returned from a one-game suspension with Matthew Wright, allowed the Philippines to pick up their fifth win in eight games and stay on course towards earning a spot in the FIBA tournament proper.
“The first half was just really bad shooting percentage from the three-point range. We were 6 percent. And to think that these are the best shooters in the country," said national coach Yeng Guiao, who experienced his first win as a national coach in the FIBA qualifiers, after the Philippines took a 73-81 loss to Iran in Tehran last Friday.
Guiao added that the team's will to win eventually allowed them to get past the Qataris.
Aguilar struck thrice in succession in the last 3:19, scoring seven points with inside plays with the help of Stanley Pringle and this put Gilas Pilipinas ahead, 59-58.
They then took a 67-62 edge in the final 41 seconds of the third.
Just like Aguilar, Alex Cabagnot also had 16 points for the Philippines, while Pringle finished with 13 and Beau Belga had 11.
The Qataris, with Mohammed shooting a game-high 26 points, missed more treys and outside shots in the third period, allowing Gilas Pilipinas to move further away off inside plays from Aguilar.
Two technical fouls and the ejection of Suliman Abdi Khalid in the remaining 5:46 proved to be disastrous for the Qataris.
“I thought we had a great job in the first half. We kind of disrupted what they wanted to do. We made shots, played as a team and in the second half, we got away from that,” said Qatar coach Tim Lewis, who added that numerous errors allowed the Philippines to catch up, before bad decisions from their veteran players sealed their doom.
Paul Lee gave the Philippines a 10-point edge, 78-68, in the dying minutes.
Team Pilipinas went on to enjoy a 17-point edge on Wright's penetration attempt, which came on top of a 8-0 blast which the Philippine side unravelled from Lee's charities.