It was a morale-boosting victory for Gilas as the Philippine team faces Singapore on Saturday to remain on top of the series on the second day of competition.
Gilas zoomed to a 17-0 lead in the opening quarter as Myanmar team was momentarily stunned by the quickness and accuracy of the Gilas team.
Gilas coach Chot Reyes surprised everyone when he changed the entire five-man team led by Andray Blatche halfway to the end of the first quarter. It wasn’t immediately known why Reyes did it but apparently he knew that it was an easy game for Gilas and he did it to give everyone a chance to play and to build confidence of the team for the succeeding games.
The Philippine team broke the 100 points lead over Myanmar with less than three minutes left in the fourth and final quarter.
The winner for the week-long tournament will represent SEABA in the 2017 FIBA Asia Cup which will take place in Lebanon from August 10 to August 20, 2017.
South East Asian countries participating the the 2017 SEABA Games include Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
The Philippine team is composed to selected top players in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) which include Calvin Abueva, Japeth Aguilar, Raymond Almazan, Andray Blatche, June Mar Fajardo, Allein Maliksi, Jovani Jalalon, Roger Pogoy, Terence Romeo, Troy Rosario, Jason Castro and Matthew Wright. Read more:
Quarter Scores: 32-7, 66-12, 110-29 and 147-140.
In the early games, Indonesia defeated Singapore 71-50 while Thailand prevailed over Malaysia 74-67.
