Team Pilipinas vs Qatar: Aguilar and Wright should replace?

(c) PBA Media Bureau

That defeat against Iran was much closer than the 8-points margin is showing. Marcio Lassiter and Alex Cabagnot missed a lot of quality three-point attempts that could have changed the tide of that match.

Nonetheless, we are now facing a must-win situation against Qatar who is currently the last place of our group in this 2nd round of the FIBA Asian Qualifiers.

If we get the L again, there is a good chance that one of Japan and Kazakhstan will win their game in that same date and tie with us. 

Before the game tomorrow, coach Yeng is facing a tough decision. 


Who should be cut to make room for Japeth Aguilar and Matthew Wright? 

Asi Taulava 
It is hard to choose Asi because of his size but with what I saw in the Asian Games and in his five minutes against Iran, he is too slow to compete for more than 5 minutes. There is a big chance that he will be exploited by a more athletic skilled big in his few minutes appearances.

We need to avoid that as much as possible. Knowing that coach Yeng is 90% already in pushing Stanley Pringle over Christian Standhardinger against Qatar, this would mean we will lose two bigs.

But Erram and Sangalang only combined for 13 minutes in their game against Iran. Qatar has a much weaker team that Erram and Sangalang can take advantage of with additional minutes.

Paul Lee
Coach Yeng only gave 10 minutes to Paul against Iran. He was basically the back-up of Alex Cabagnot who played 30 minutes.

If that will be the rotation-scheme of coach Yeng, Paul Lee should be the one to take the red-shirt. Stanley will surely takeover the starting PG spot and will push Alex to the back-up position. 

The hard choice will be between Allein Maliksi and Paul Lee because Paul can play in the wings. But I think the problem of paying Paul is his slow speed and agility and Maliksi is way better in defending wings.

At the end of the day, this decision could only be about 5 minutes of playing time. For me, I will give it to the more athletic Maliksi who is more adept at playing as a run-through-screens catch-and-shoot sniper.