Powerade-RP pours treys on Chinese Taipei

TIANJIN – Powerade Team Pilipinas found its impeccable shooting sadly missing in its stand against Korea and outclassed Chinese Taipei last night, pulling off a crucial 77-70 win to inch closer to the knockout stage of the 25th FIBA Asia Championship here.

James Yap converted six of 11 three-point attempts, Willie Miller knocked in five of five while Jayjay Helterbrand, Cyrus Baguio and Mick Pennisi combined for four as the Nationals outgunned the Taiwanese to enhance their bid for a slot in the quarterfinals.

The Nationals try to seal their entry into the next round with one more win in their last two games in the preliminaries.

Powerade-RP is in for a tough fight against reigning champion Iran at 11 a.m. today but is highly favored against Kuwait at 9 a.m. tomorrow.

“I feel relieved because we now have one foot into the quarterfinals. We can assure it with one more win, and I believe we can get it,” said coach Yeng Guiao.

“Since we beat Chinese Taipei, and Japan and Kuwait lost their games, we even have a good chance of avoiding China in the quarterfinals,” Guiao said.

“Lebanon and Jordan are also strong. But if we talk about possibilities and probabilities, you would like playing them than China,” he said.

With the win, the Philippines improved its carry-over record to 3-1 while Chinese-Taipei slid to 1-2 and Japan and Kuwait stayed in the cellar with identical 0-2 marks in Group E.

Iran and Korea improved their slates to 3-0 with the Iranians ripping the Japanese, 101-71, and the Koreans blasting the Kuwaitis, 78-58.

The Nationals hit at an excellent 50-percent three-point shooting, drilling in a total of 15 treys with the last – courtesy of Miller – icing their win at 75-70 with 13.7 seconds left.

“We concentrated on shooting in our practice yesterday (Sunday) and this morning. And I think it helped us get into groove,” said Miller.

But not Guiao.

“It can’t be improved in one day. Nakuha lang siguro sa mura at sigaw (Probably by shouting at them to shoot did help),” said Guiao in jest.

“What they have, they have. You can’t go 15 percent to 50 percent just because of practice,” Guiao added. “If we just shot this well against Korea, we could have beaten them. We really shot exceptionally well today. The problem is if we could repeat it.”

The Nationals combined torrid shooting with tenacious defense that had them holding the Taiwanese to one three-point conversion.

“The Philippines played so well on defense, their players were body-to-body on us,” said Chung Kwang-suk, the Korean coach of the Chinese-Taipei team.

The Taiwanese shot the lights out of the Filipinos in their Jones Cup encounter in Taipei with Taiwanese forward Tien Lei – with six treys – outgunning the entire RP team.

“We have a high respect for the Chinese-Taipei team. We know they have good shooters and we worked hard to take away their three-point shots,” said Guiao.

Still, the Taiwanese put up a whale of a fight, taking control of the entire first half with center Tseng Wen-ting dominating the paint. Tseng paced the Taiwanese with 21 points that went with seven rebounds, two assists and seven fouls drawn.

NOTES: Former LA Lakers coach Del Harris and former New Jersey Nets mentor John Calipari are in town as guests of the Chinese Basketball Federation. Harris will receive a special award and will also observe the Asia meet, being former coach of the Chinese squad…Chinese sportswriters were so impressed by Willie Miller they said the Filipino player regaled the crowd with “Miller Time.” Asked by one local writer of his comment, coach Yeng Guiao joked “Willie is the uglier version of Reggie Miller.” Seriously Guiao said “Willie is one of the best shooters in the Philippines. We expect him to shoot well. But he’s exceptional today.”