Gilas failed to take home the title against Serbia

Gilas Pilipinas was defeated after their match against Serbia, despite that, they will complete their group
round schedule on Wednesday against Angola.

Serbia, led by Denver Nuggets All-Star Nikola Jokic, was simply too strong for Gilas Pilipinas as they
secured their spot in the second round for their most awaited match against Italy and improved their
Group D record to 2-0 while Gilas Pilipinas fell to 0-2 and has been relegated to the classification phase.

“Of course, we’re all disappointed,” said Gilas coach Yeng Guiao after the game. “It’s really the same
disappointment that we feel. But I feel, overall, this is a better effort, actually,” he added.

Gilas coach Yeng Guiao expressed his disappointment after the game and said that they were all
unhappy after their loss against Serbia, although he believes that they’ve done good altogether.

On the first quarter of the game, Gilas Pilipinas was doing well and just trailed 15 points, 28-13.

Fellow rookie Robert scored five points to be ahead and cut the lead to 11 points,38-29, after he joined
the game in the second quarter.

The Columbian Dyip rookie, CJ Perez proved to be the spark plug the Gilas needed and showed that he
was fearless after driving to the Serbia defense for lay-ups, with his steal off a Serbian inbound pass, he
made it an 11-point game,34-23, with 7:28 time left in the second quarter but, Serbia turned the tide as
Nikola Jokic’s triple moved an 18-2 run and as Gilas’ moves were crucial with Kiefer Ravena giving the
ball away in back-to-back possessions that gives easy buckets by Stefan Jovic and Vladimir Lucic.

Serbia starts to dominate the third quarter as they scored the first 13 points of the game and Gilas starts
to vanish from there.

Nemanja Bjelica was the best player for Serbia as he scored 20 points, 7-of-7 from the court, as well as
Jokic who had 11 points, 7 rebounds, and 7 assists in less than 19 minutes of the game also Bogdan
Bordanovic who scored 17 points.

Serbia, as a team, made 75% of its shots — including 36 of 42 two-pointers. They led by as much as 59
points in the game.

Perez was the best player for Gilas, he led them with 16 points on 6-of-11 shooting while Paul Lee
scored 15 points and June Mar Fajardo bucked an ankle sprain to put up 8 points and 6 rebounds.

Meanwhile, Andray Blatche struggled to attempt 5 points and only making 2 of his 10 attempts.

Gilas again was weak as the Filipinos turned just 4 of 24 three-pointers and shot 37% from the field and
committed 14 turnovers, which Serbia converts it into 28 points.

Serbia took home the title and won the game since they have great power and coordination, while Gilas
was disappointed from losing but was preparing for their group rounds in Angola on Wednesday.