Philippines beat Syria and advance to the Quarterfinals

WUHAN, China (26th FIBA Asia Championship): Unlike the other games naturalized center Marcus Douthit was in prime form early in the game, but for the third night running, Philippines had to fight back a deficit before beating an enthusiastic Syria 75-52, thus winning all their three engagements in Group F on Wednesday.

China the only team to beat Philippines in this competition are engaged in a battle of wits with Japan and should the hosts win as expected by the capacity crowd at the Wuhan Sports Center, Philippines line up against Chinese Taipei in Friday’s quarterfinals.

Douthit was in prime form scoring a dozen – out of a team-high 20 – in the first quarter but there was very little contribution from others.

Syria seized the opportunity ran some good offenses of their own went ahead with a 7-0 run across the first quarter break and led by nine points at the end of the first half.

“We had a dream run. They were missing too many chances and we were not missing many. I wish we could have continued it,” said Syria coach Goran Miljevic.

“But they started pressing us hard in the second and we didn’t have a solution,” he added.

“Just that our shots were not going in. We were missing some simple lay-ups,” said Philippines coach Rajko Toroman.

“I wanted to play a different plan today giving as much result as possible to Jimmy (Alapag) and Kelly (Williams), but it didn’t work,” he said.

Eventually, Toroman used all his players for almost nine minutes each, and all of them scored.