‘SAYONARA GILAS’: China ends Gilas’ Asian Games title defense

By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña

No statistics or plus-minus sheets can justify what happened.

The Gilas Pilipinas men’s national basketball team was completely smacked, destroyed, and annihilated by the revenge-seeking Chinese squad.

Aiming to pull off a statement win to keep their Asian Games title defense alive, the Filipino hoopers suffered the opposite fate as they succumbed to China in a lopsided affair, 105-61, at Aichi International Arena in Japan on Sept. 14, 2026.

With the win, China successfully avenged its 2022 Asian Games semifinal loss to Gilas, when it wasted an eight-point lead with only 67 seconds remaining in the game.

However, the 2026 edition had a different storyline.

There was no Justin Brownlee to carry Gilas’ scoring load, and the national team’s core players failed to report for duty due to prior commitments with their overseas teams.

The all-PBA squad, which prior to the Asian Games received a wave of backlash due to its inexperience in international basketball and lack of height, immediately became the talk of the PHL basketball community.

For four straight quarters, Gilas failed to match China’s high-octane attack, struggled against its imposing height and size advantage, and failed to live by its never-say-die mantra.

Gilas lost every quarter in scoring and fell behind by 20 points after the first frame, 36-16. The mismatch was obvious. The Chinese frontcourt demolished Justine Brandon Bates, Brandon Ganuelas-Rosser, Justine Baltazar, and Justin Arana inside the shaded lane.

With China grabbing nine early offensive rebounds, the lead quickly grew to double digits. Worse, Gilas went cold from the 3-point line, unlike in its previous win over Kazakhstan, when it shot an efficient 16-of-29 from downtown.

Gilas desperately needed defensive stops to halt the bleeding, but head coach Tim Cone’s 1-2-2 zone defense barely had any impact as the Chinese big men barreled their way into the paint with little resistance.

The game was pretty much over at halftime, with China taking a commanding 36-point lead, 66-30, marking Gilas’ worst first-half outing in the Asian Games in the last eight years.

Despite Gilas holding China to just 13 points in the third quarter, the Chinese squad unleashed one final barrage in the fourth period, scoring 26 points to officially eliminate the PHL from the Asian Games.

NCAA Division I player Wang Junjie led China’s relentless charge with a dominant double-double of 20 points and 14 rebounds, while Liao Sanning and Hu Mingxuan chipped in 14 and 13 points, respectively.

On the other hand, the defeated Gilas squad received 13 points from Calvin Oftana, the only holdover from the 2023 Gilas championship team.