By REYNALD MAGALLON
The basketball crown in the Southeast Asian Games is back to its rightful owner.
Gilas Pilipinas showed unwavering resolve and turned back host Cambodia, 80-69, to complete its mission for redemption in the 5-on-5 men’s basketball competitions at the Elephant Hall 2 Morodok Techo National Stadium on Tuesday, May 16.
With the pressure never being this high and against an opponent that has never been this formidable, no thanks to its slew of naturalized players, the Filipinos made sure to deliver and reclaim the lost gold medal in the biennial meet.
The Nationals silenced the hostile crowd with a blistering 19-7 second quarter onslaught that allowed them to seize control of the contest before slamming any hopes of comeback for Cambodia in the waning minutes.
Heroes abound for the Filipinos as Justin Brownlee picked up where he left off after dropping 34 points in the semifinals game against Indonesia, this time, leading the way with 23 points, seven rebounds and four assists.
Chris Newsome also saved his finest performance for the last, unloading 16 points while Marcio Lassiter added 10.
Christian Standhardinger, CJ Perez and Brandon Ganuelas-Rosser all had their hands in the gold-clinching win contributing nine points each.
Redemption has been the theme of Gilas’ campaign in the SEA Games and the gold medal match was not an exception as the Filipinos also exacted their revenge against Cambodia which defeated them in the group stage.
Refusing to fall into the same traps from that loss, Gilas went off to a good start in the contest although the Cambodians still managed to keep in step and even took a 22-20 lead at the end of the opening frame.
That, however, was the last time the host would get a taste of the lead as Gilas, behind Brownlee, Lassiter and Newsome spearheaded that second quarter assault that saw Gilas build a 13-point lead, 42-29 after a Ganuelas-Rosser put back jam.
Cambodia tried to stage a comeback, cutting the lead down to just five several times in the second half but Gilas simply found an answer to every rally from the hosts.
The hosts last threatened Gilas when it cut the lead down to just five, 64-59, early in the final frame but was immediately met with back-to-back triples from Perez and Brownlee that all but dashed every bit of comeback hopes from the hosts.
Brandon Peterson and Darrin Dorsey finished with 18 and 17 points respectively – all of which went down the drain as Cambodia was denied a possible sweep of the tournament, settling for the silver medal.
