By REYNALD MAGALLON
The Gilas Pilipinas U18 caught Syria off-guard with its torrid shooting and air-tight defense and romped to a 112-48 win at the start of the FIBA U18 Asian Championships at the Azadi Basketball Hall in Tehran, Iran on Sunday, Aug. 21.
It was a wire-to-wire win for the Filipino dribblers who practically held a shooting clinic that left the Syrians shaking their heads in sheer disappointment.
And who would not be.
The Nationals were already way ahead just after the first quarter, 35-7, a lead that went to as high as 71 points.
Mason Amos dropped 12 of his 26 points in the opening frame and singlehandedly outscored the Syrian team in the first 10 minutes of the match.
The rest of the team followed suit as Seven Gagate and EJ Abadam flexed their size advantage over Syria to finish with 19 points apiece.
Abadam also anchored the suffocating Gilas defense with his seven steals on top of six rebounds and four assists. Gilas forced Syria to 39 errors, 29 of which came as steals for the nationals.
Gagate flirted with a double-double with his nine rebounds while Joshua Coronel and Kristian Porter scattered 10 points and 13 rebounds, respectively.
George Kastntin paced Syria with 12.
With the win, Gilas gets an early share of the lead with Chinese Taipei which earlier defeated Qatar, 92-62.
Up next for Gilas is Qatar on Monday, 7:15 p.m.
