Gilas pulls off Houdini act

HANGZHOU – Gilas Pilipinas pulled off an escape act as great as Harry Houdini’s.

After leading by as many as 21 points in the third quarter, Gilas turned cold as Iran clawed back into the game, grabbed the lead with 62 seconds left and came oh so close to crushing the Filipinos’ medal hopes at the 19th Asian Games.

A big basket by Justin Brownlee in the final 44 seconds followed by an even bigger miss by Iranian Matin Aghajanpour from three-point range gave Gilas a scary 84-83 win and a precious ticket to the semifinals of men’s basketball here.

“Never say die,” said Brownlee.

“We were lucky to win,” said Gilas coach Tim Cone after the thrilling do-or-die encounter at the Zhejiang University Zijingang Gymnasium packed with Chinese fans that in the end rooted for the Iranians like they were the home team.

For Cone, it must have felt like getting out of a straight jacket while suspended by the ankles mid-air – like Houdini.

It was the second straight win for Gilas after a painful loss to Jordan at the close of their group stage – a victory which Team Philippines badly needed as it continued to dig for gold in various fronts heading to the closing ceremony on Sunday.

So far, Team Philippines had EJ Obiena’s gold in pole vault, Arnel Mandal’s silver in wushu and nine bronze medals from taekwondo, wushu, tennis, BMX racing, weightlifting and yesterday, in sepak takraw.

The team of Jason Huerte, Rheyjey Ortouste, Vince Alyson Torno and Mark Joseph Gonzales took the first set against Indonesia but dropped the next two, 21-15, 24-25, 17-19, and lost in the semifinals of the men’s quadrant in sepak takraw.

It was a sad ending for the team that defeated Japan, 21-18, 11-21, 21-19, and South Korea, 21-17, 11-21, 21-12, then Singapore, 21-8, 21-15, heading to the semifinal match against Indonesia.

“Thank you boys. We will go back to work,” said sepak takraw chief Karen Caballero.

Later in the evening, Carlo Paalam was shown the door by reigning world and Asian champion Abdumalik Khalakov of Uzbekistan, who posted a 5-0 victory in their 57kg quarterfinals bout.

“Hindi ako nag-sisisi. Ginawa ko ang best ko para sa bansa at para sa sarili ko,” said Paalam, silver medalist in