GILAS Pilipinas surrendered an 82-70 decision to South Korea to absorb its first loss in the William R. Jones Cup invitational tournament on Monday at the Xin Zhuang Gymnasium in Taiwan.
The South Koreans used a 13-0 assault to turn a 56-58 deficit into a 69-58 lead early in the fourth quarter before Terrence Romeo buried six straight points to slice their rivals’ lead to 64-69 with almost three minutes remaining.
But the Koreans answered with a 7-1 exchange, capped by Lee Jung-hyun’s triple to push their lead back to 76-65 with 1:42 left, and never looked back to nail their first win after starting the tournament with back-to-back losses.
Romeo had another solid performance for Gilas with 23 points, while Gary David had his best game in a long while for the nationals with 16 markers.
The Philippines dropped to 1-1 after shocking host Taiwan’s national team on Sunday night, 77-69, behind Romeo’s 18 points.
Lee Seung-hyun and Moon Tae-yung led South Korea with 19 and 17 points, respectively.
Iran, meanwhile, picked up another dominating victory this time against Japan, 78-57, to stay unscathed also on Monday.
The reigning continental champions leaned on veterans Mahdi Kamrani and Hamed Haddadi in the opening minutes of the final quarter to silence the Japanese and book their third straight win and join Russia’s Sahalin Pro Club at the top of the standings of the eight-nation international tournament.
Kamrani made eight of his 12 points in the pivotal fourth quarter, while Haddadi, the 7-foot-3 former National Basketball Association campaigner, tallied 14 points and eight boards in 20 minutes of action.
Joji Takeuchi paced Japan with 16 points, while Takatoshi Furukawa added 12 markers for the team of Head Coach Ryosuke Kunitome.
Furukawa’s triple allowed Japan to slice Iran’s double-digit lead to 46-55 with 9:10 remaining before Haddadi and Kamrani joined forces in a telling 12-3 spurt to put the game out of reach, 67-49, 5:06 left in the game.
It was the third lopsided win for the wards of Iran’s German Coach Dirk Bauermann. The Iranians also defeated South Korea by 33 points (77-46) and Taiwan’s second team by 22 (88-66) earlier in the tournament.