At A Glance
- Powerhouse Mongolia proved to be a tough nut to crack for Gilas Pilipinas as the Nationals absorbed a 21-12 defeat on Friday, Sept. 29, denying them an outright spot in the quarterfinals of the men's 3x3 basketball event in the 19th Asian Games at the Deqing Geographic Information Park in Hangzhou.
Powerhouse Mongolia proved to be a tough nut to crack for Gilas Pilipinas as the Nationals absorbed a 21-12 defeat on Friday, Sept. 29, denying them an outright spot in the quarterfinals of the men’s 3x3 basketball event in the 19th Asian Games at the Deqing Geographic Information Park in Hangzhou.

A slow start spelled doom for the Filipinos as the Mongolians went on an early 5-0 salvo presided over by their No.8 and No.18 ranked 3x3 players in Batzaya Tsermaa and Ulzii-Orshikh Myagmarsuren who set the tone for the convincing win.
Bismarck Lina led the valiant Gilas stand with seven points but were not enough as the Filipinos could only muster to come within six, 16-10, before Mongolia sealed its spot in the quarterfinals after an Avirmed Lhagvaa charity with still over two minutes left.
Tsermaa and Myagmarsuren finished with eight and seven points respectively for Mongolia which finished the pool play with a 3-1 record.
Gilas actually had the same win-loss slate along with Chinese Taipei but slid down to the third spot due to an inferior points total as the Nationals' first two wins didn’t even reach 21 points.
The medal hopes are certainly well within the hands of the Filipinos despite the loss but they will have to take the longer route to advance to the quarterfinals.
Gilas now awaits the results of the rest of the pool play as it is expected to play the second seed of Pool D which can either be Qatar, Kazakhstan or Thailand for one of the remaining quarters seats.