Big third quarter propel Jordan past Palestine

AMMAN (Jordan) - Jordan began their FIBA Asia Cup 2025 Qualifiers journey on the right foot following a 73-46 romp of Palestine, Friday night at the Prince Hamza Sport Hall.

Game heroes: Ahmad Al-Dwairi top-scored for the Falcons with 13 points on 6-of-9 shooting from the field, alongside 13 rebounds, 2 assists, and a block in 25 minutes.

Hashem Abbas contributed 12 points, 7 rebounds, and a pair of steals. Big man Mohammad Hussein flirted with a double-double as he tallied 10 points and 9 rebounds, together with 2 assists and a block, in the victory that saw all but one score at least 2 points.

Turning point: The Jordanians held an eight-point lead at the half but the break seemingly got them recalibrated on both ends of the floor. The crew opened the third quarter with 20 unanswered points toward a 54-26 advantage, eventually cruising to the triumph.

Palestine were held to just 4 points in the said period.

Stats don't lie: The home team flat-out dominated the boards by hauling down 62, indeed a far cry from only the 41 the opposition mustered. They displayed better ball movement as well with 15 assists, something that their foes couldn't match as they only had 6 feeds.

They said: "It's the first step in this Qualifiers and we know we can get better game by game. I do believe that if we shoot the ball a little better,  we will have a much better game. Our defensive plan works perfectly. We held them to under 50 points which was perfect, but I think we have a problem with our free throws and we did not shoot the ball well from three-points today. Other than that, I'm really happy with the effort and I hope we can we can build on that." - Wesam Al-Sous, Head Coach, Jordan

"I think we really had a bad third quarter … and based on statistics, rebounds were the difference because they had 62 and we only had 41. We tried to be more competitive but of course, we are not pleased by our performance. The game is over, we have another game on Monday so we need to be ready." - Ioannis Diamantakos, Head Coach, Palestine

"The situation in our country didn’t help us to prepare well for this game, whether physically or psychologically. Inshallah, next game, we’ll be better." - Amin Salman, Palestine

FIBA