Gilas Pilipinas battled world No. 10 Italy on even terms early on in the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 Tuesday night until the Azzuri’s sporadic three-point shots turned into an avalanche.
The Philippines’ final shot at making the second round was essentially put down from there although the Nationals did make a last-ditch attempt to turn things around only to fall short.
Italy found the perfect time to find the mark from deep, torching the Filipinos with 17 triples on the way to a 90-83 victory on the final day of Group A action at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Ranked last in three-point shooting in the tournament with a 12-of-60 clip through the first two games, the Italians were dared to shoot treys and made Gilas Pilipinas pay in punching their ticket to the next round of FIBA’s global showpiece.
Italy finished with a 2-1 record just behind Dominican Republic which earlier swept its group assignments, 3-0, after a 75-67 victory over Angola.
That win opened a window for the Philippines to slip in after it lost its first two games – against Dominican Republic and Angola. But Italy quickly shut it closed in the third quarter.
Simone Fontecchio, Jordan Clarkson’s Utah Jazz teammate, bucked a busted lip early in the first half in leading the three-point barrage with three triples to finish with 18 points while Marco Spissu and Giampaolo Ricci had four treys each to finish with 14 and 13 points, respectively.
It was also a balanced attack for the Azzurri with Stefano Tonut, Alessandro Pajola, and Nicolo Melli chipping in 13, 11, and 10 as they surged to a sizeable margin that went to as high as 18 points, 80-62, in the second half.
The win, however, didn’t come without a scare as the Filipinos, behind the 11,821 rallying them on, tried to mount another comeback with an inspired 10-0 run that cut the lead down to just seven, 88-81 with still 1:43 left.
Italy, however, showed great poise in front of the roaring crowd, completing two huge defensive stops against the comebacking host team before Pajola sealed the deal for the Azzurri with two late free throws.
Gilas Pilipinas coach Chot Reyes complimented his players for not giving up on their hopes.
“[I’m] very proud of the effort of our players. What a way to fight, coming off those two painful losses and to still show up tonight, give it their all against [the] top ten team in the world,” said Reyes.
“Couldn’t ask for more, but we just came up short. But we continued to fight, that’s all we can do.”
Clarkson led Gilas with 23 points, but was 8-of-20 from the field, including 1-of-7 from three-point range, with four turnovers.
The Philippines shot slightly better from the field overall, but was 10-of-29 from beyond the arc, a 21- point difference that proved too much to overcome.
Dwight Ramos was the only other Filipino in double figures with 14, but even he fell victim to a shooting funk in going 2-of-8 from deep.
Up next for Gilas Pilipinas is the classification stage where it will face the No. 3 team from Group B – either South Sudan, China, or Puerto Rico – on Thursday, Aug. 31.