Jaworski proud of Gilas Pilipinas’ feat

MANILA, Philippines - Philippine basketball legend Robert Jaworski was in attendance in the final day of the FIBA Asia Championship at the MOA Arena in Pasay Sunday, when the Philippines suffered a 71-85 loss against Iran, for a silver medal finish in the tournament.

The former national team player then shared his thoughts in the final game that featured a Marcus Douthit-less Gilas Pilipinas.

"We missed a lot of shots and had a lot of miscues but let's face it, with the Douthit injury it was really hard. At least we got closer to achieving the championship compared to years past and it was not a bad performance," said Jaworski.

Gilas Pilipinas shot poorly from the field with a 32 percent clip while Iran had a superior outing at a pristine 49 percent sniping.

"Only Jasyon (Castro) and Jimmy (Alapag) were hitting their shots and the other shooters could not make their shots. It's back to the drawing board for them to make some adjustments," said the former Philippines senator.

Despite the loss, Jaworski, arguably the most popular player in the history of Philippine basketball is proud of the team's performance in the tournament.

"The schedule was really tough for them. They play every day and had to be ready mentally and physically, and I think they gave everything they had and made all of us proud," said the 1978 PBA MVP.

Jaworksi, a member of the 1973 Asian champion team that represented the region in the 1974 World Championships in San Juan, Puerto Rico, had some advice for the team in their campaign next year.

"We should prepare hard. Although there are a lot of strong teams there, we can review the past couple of games and we can learn a lot. We still have a lot of room for improvement," he said.

"We need to learn how to guard tall players like (Hamed) Haddadi and make some adjustments so that we can play well next year," he ended.