By REYNALD MAGALLON
Justin Brownlee, on the other hand, was a man on a mission in the group stage averaging 27.0 points, 8.5 rebounds and 8.5 assists, leading the tournament in scoring and assist departments.
That’s why it was not surprising just how proud Brazil head coach Aleksandar Petrovic was with their defensive efforts, noting that they managed to take away almost every Gilas’ point of attack within its triangle offense.
“We can be proud of how we cut every single triangle game of the Philippines,” said Petrovic after limiting Gilas to just 60 points largely behind a huge third quarter defensive stand when they clamped down on the Filipinos who only had six points.
“We cut them everything, they stayed below 31 points of their average in the first two games. We cut them their percentage of the shots,” he added.
One huge reason behind Brazil’s defense was their effort to put the cuffs on Justin Brownlee who after exploding for 12 points in the first half, could only muster three points in the last two quarters to finish with 15 – a far cry from his average of 27 points through the first two games.
“(Coach) told us to try and stop him because he would shoot the ball like 20 times a game and we have to cut his percentage below 48 percent because he was shooting the ball pretty well,” said Brazil guard Georginho De Paula.
“They’re playing the triangle offense so we knew how they move and we were following him. Wherever he goes we were following so I think we did a great job,” he added.
Petrovic, particularly lauded Lucas Dias, their designated Brownlee stopper for clamping down on the prolific Gilas scorer.
“We moved him when Philippines played Brownlee on the four spot. We moved him to the other guys on the perimeter because we would like to continue our defense on Brownlee,” said Petrovic.
“When the Philippines scored 60 points, in my opinion, we did a good job,” he added.
