Chinese Taipei handed Smart Gilas first loss.

TPE handed the Phils its first loss in the FIBA Asia Tournament, 84-79. I will directly point out why Smart Gilas lost this game.

I think a coaching error was the main reason why the team lost. During the run of the TPE team, their bigmen outplayed the bigmen of Smart Gilas. De Ocampo was clearly off. He was very slow and the opponent was able to exploit that. The coaching error came when Coach Chot was not able to adjust to it right away, and he countered (very late) with a two point guard lineup which back fired.

Defensively, Smart Gilas have shown problems defending the pick and roll. That's what TPE run almost every possession that enabled them to get back in the game and win eventually. I also noticed players helping one-pass away that resulted to open looks by TPE.

Offensively, I already noticed no weak side movement. They were running screen and rolls badly, and the team goes on a five-out when the screen and roll failed.The result, bad shots. I already said they were standing around too much in numerous possession. They are all waiting for that dribble penetration to happen. I think Coach Chot doesn't like to run "horns" (which I suggested in my first blog), I think Douthit is not much of a threat at the post where he used to be. The team shot poorly at 37%, mainly because of poor shot selection and execution. Team spacing is also ridiculous. There was even a possession wherein all players are on one side of the court. The team has yet to exploit the corner three.  Maybe they can put the shooters at the corners, because I saw a lot of 3s taken at the wings.

Hopefully this is a nice wake-up call for the team and coach Chot. Good luck to next games. Keep fighting...