MANILA – Ilonggo Kiefer Ravena and Kevin Quiambao had a good scoring game but Gilas Pilipinas still suffered a 92-75 defeat to New Zealand in the 2022 FIBA Asia Cup on Sunday night at the Istora Senayan in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Ravena had his best game in the competition with 17 points to go with six rebounds and three assists, while Quiambao caught fire in the opening half to finish with 14 markers for Team Philippines.
The national men’s basketball team had a flat start. They surrendered three-pointer after three-pointer and easy inside conversions to New Zealand as they built a 30-16 advantage.
Gilas Pilipinas were still down early in the second quarter but Quiambao made his presence felt with consecutive inside conversion as they trimmed New Zealand’s lead to single digit.
Ravena then caught fire for the wards of Vincent “Chot” Reyes as he unloaded seven straight points to come within 38-43 but the New Zealanders answered with a triple to make it an eight-point edge at the half.
New Zealand opened the third quarter strong as they quickly outscored Gilas Pilipinas for a 51-40 lead. More triples from the former widened the advantage further to as high as 22 points.
Gilas Pilipinas, however, still managed to put up a fight at the onset of the fourth quarter behind Ravena, Quiambao and Carl Tamayo to cut New Zealand’s deficit down to 12 points.
New Zealand responded with wide open three-point hits and easy penetrations to the basket as the lead went up anew to 92-72 before Tamayo made a last-minute outside basket.
Tamayo also hit double figures for the Gilas Pilipinas with 14 points, Bobby Ray Parks Jr. had a poor shooting game as he tallied 10 markers, on 3-of-8 shooting from the field, while Thirdy Ravena had a paltry 2-of-12 shooting for seven points.
For finishing at third in their group with 1-2 win-loss slate, the Philippine men’s basketball team will battle Japan, which is led by NBA player Yuta Watanabe, in a knockout game for a place in the quarterfinals tonight.
Flynn Cameron paced New Zealand with 18 points, Taine Murray shot 4-of-9 from deep to end up with 16 points, while Kruz Perrott-Hunt and Tohi Smith-Milner had 12 and 11 points, respectively.
BOX SCORE:
NEW ZEALAND 92 — Cameron 18, Murray 16, Perrott-Hunt 12, Smith-Milner 11, Davidson 10, Britt 8, Fahrensohn 7, Hunt 4, Timmins 4, Mennenga 2.
PHILIPPINES 75 — K. Ravena 17, Quiambao 14, Tamayo 14, Parks 10, T. Ravena 7, Erram 6, Belangel 4, Abando 3, Navarro 0, Lopez 0, Chiu 0, Abarrientos 0.
Quarterscores: 30-16, 46-38, 67-52, 92-75./PN
