Fresh from a rousing 98-69 victory over the all-pro Powerade National Team that represented the country in the recent FIBA Asia Championships, the young and exciting Smart Gilas national pool squad coached by Serbia’s Rajko Toroman routed the Asean Basketball League Philippine “Patriots” of Harbour Center’s Mikee Romero and ABC 5 owner Tonyboy Cojuangco 87-66 in a practice game at The Arena in San Juan, Tuesday evening.
Smart Gilas was sc heduled to play the top c aliber Alaska Aces in another practice game Wednesday at the Reyes Gym in Mandaluyong.
Lanky 6’9 Japeth Aguilar who impressed PBA fans with his showing against the Powerade team on Monday once again led all scorers with 24 points including four triples but CJ Giles who was the victim of some bad calls was forced to sit out for long spells as a result.
Although the talented Giles who was brought in by Smart Gilas which is trying to work on his naturalization so he could play for the Philippines just like several other countries have done, had only 2 points but once again dominated the boards with 11 rebounds, 10 of them at the defensive end.
Point guards JV Casio who finished with 14 points and the exciting Mark Barroca who also contributed the same number of points played even better than they did against coach Yeng Guiao’s Powerade team although the “Patriots” at times sought to rough them up and often resorted to tugging at the Smart Gilas players jerseys to prevent them from moving and executing plays.
Aguilar who was picked No.1 in the PBA Annual Draft by Burger King but decided not to sign up and instead wants to play under Toroman and effectively hone his skills while enjoying playing aside his young teammates, regaled the small crowd present with a couple of awesome slam dunks and deft shots from the outside showing he had the touch to accentuate his inside game.
Mac Baracacel, Dylan Ababou and Chris Tiu were also impressive in a game that demonstrated the team’s togetherness which was also a key factor in their overpowering performance against the Powerade National Team which, in f airness to coach Guiao, was undermanned and had only one practice before the Smart Gilas game.
After quickly opening up a 17-7 lead Smart Gilas went scoreless for almost five minutes while the “Patriots” behind former PBA import Jason Dixon and Brandon Powell clawed back to end the first quarter down 17-14.
Smart Gilas opened up a 10 point lead at the half, 42-32 and increased it to 25 at the end of the third, 72-47 before easing up a little in the final quarter to eventually win by 21 points, 87-66.
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