Philippines finish 5th by dominating Syria to highlight Classification Games

JAKARTA (Asian Games 2018) – The 5^th to 8^th place in Basketball  tournaments at the Asian Games 2018 are settled after the results of today’s games. Indonesia beat Mongolia for the 7^th place while Kazakhstan beat Thailand for 5^th place in the Women’s. Japan emerged victorious over Indonesia to clinched 7^th and the Philippines dominated Syria for 5^th place on the men’s side.

The Women’s Indonesia National Team were able to please the home crowd by winning in their final game of the tournament over Mongolia, 82-66. Mongolia had no answer for Nathasa Debby Christaline who erupted for 37 points and shot 7-12 from beyond the arc.

The Men’s team of hosts Indonesia were not as fortunate to go out with a victory, but put on a valiant effort against Japan before losing 84-66. Japan were up by only three points entering the final quarter, but got a 13-2 run sparked by Naoto Tsuji’s three triples to start the final interval. Tsuji finished the game with 29 points, knocking down 8 of 14 three-point attempts and scoring the remainder of his points from the free-throw line. Jamar Johnson had a double-double of 23 points and 12 rebounds in the host nation’s final game of the competition.

The Thailand Women’s team suffered a similar heartbreaking loss in the 5^th place qualification game to Kazakhstan, 71-64. The two teams took their turns at making runs and swapped the lead back and forth for most of the game. Thailand were able to claim the lead 51-49 at the end of the third quarter, but allowed Kazakhstan to overtake them at the 7-minute mark of the 4^th quarter and never looked back. A long dagger three by Olga Kolesnikova with barely a minute left to make the score 67-64 and Kazakhstan broke away with a 7-0 run to win. Nadezhda Kondrakova led the team with 17 points, but it was her defensive efforts of 4 steals and 3 blocked shots that shined brightest. Thailand’s 20-year-old rising star Kanokwan Prajuabsuk had 19 points in the losing effort.

The Philippines put on a show in a spectacular 109-55 win over Syria to close out their run in the Asian Games at 5^th place. The two stars of the Philippines, Jordan Clarkson and Christian Standhardinger, were impressive to the very end with 29 and 27 points, respectively. Standhardinger also had 15 rebounds as the Philippines compiled 67 rebounds to Syria’s 39. Tarek Aljabi led in scoring again for Syria with a 23 point effort on 20 attempts.

FIBA