Gilas Pilipinas vs. Kuwait: Score, Reaction from 2015 FIBA Asia Championships

For the second day in a row, Gilas Pilipinas cruised to an easy victory at the FIBA Asia Championship in Changsha, China, as they defeated Kuwait 110-64 Friday.

Nine Filipino players netted at least eight points in the contest, including guard Terrence Romeo, who led the way with 19. Gilas shot 56 percent from three-point range, 56 percent from the field overall and out-rebounded Kuwait by a 52-26 margin.

Most importantly, the Philippines advanced to the second round of the FIBA Asia Championship with Friday's win and officially moved past Wednesday's disappointing loss to Palestine. Conversely, Kuwait was eliminated from the tournament with a record of 0-3.

While Gilas now have back-to-back blowout victories to their credit, head coach Tab Baldwin made it clear that it will take much more than that to erase the memory of the loss to Palestine, according to Gerry Ramos of Spin.ph.

"We don't redeem ourselves until we wipe every bit of doubt on everybody's mind on who we are," Baldwin said.

The Philippines at least took a step toward doing that Friday as it dominated overmatched Kuwait from start to finish. As seen in this highlight video, courtesy of FIBA on YouTube, Kuwait was never really in the game:

Gilas Pilipinas raced out to a 34-11 lead in the first quarter, and Kuwait couldn't recover as the lead was stretched to 28 by halftime.

As pointed out by Ryan Songalia of Rappler.com, Kuwait looked to be a battered and broken team, especially after losing big in its two previous games as well:

That type of struggle can often lead to frustration on the court, and that manifested itself near the conclusion of the contest when Kuwait's Abdulaziz Alhamidi hit Gilas forward Ranidel de Ocampo with a low blow for no apparent reason:

That ended the game on a sour note, and that carried over to the postgame handshakes as de Ocampo and the Kuwait players were unwilling to congratulate each other, according to TJ Manotoc of ABS-CBN:

It is certainly unfortunate that Gilas' fantastic performance was marred by a dirty play down the stretch, but the Philippines must move past it with the second round on the horizon.

Tough clashes with Iran and Japan among others await in the second round with the top four teams from Group E advancing to the final round.

Gilas may not be favored to win the tournament after losing to Palestine, but they are certainly expected to make it to the quarterfinals due to the fact that they finished second in the 2013 FIBA Asia Championship.

The Philippines has played much closer to its potential over the past two games albeit against a low level of competition, and it will need to carry that form over to the next round since the games are bound to get much tougher.  

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