By REYNALD MAGALLON
The Philippine national NBA2K team, eGilas, stamped its class and swept Turkiye, 2-0 to claim its very first world championship in the eFIBA World Finals Season 4 at the Mall of Qatar in Doha on Saturday, July 4 (Manila time).
After a pair of frustrating fourth place finishes through the last two editions of the global tournament, the Filipinos finally cut the string of futility and topped the best-of-three championship series to bring home the title and pocket the top prize of $20,000 or roughly around P1.2 million.
The quintet of Miguel “MiguelCarlo” Hubillar, Kenneth “Clue-” Gutierrez Miguel Chris “_iLuvio-“ Briones, Joshua “_JMacc” Machado and Prich “DonP” Diez — under coaches Nite Alparas and Anthony De Jesus had a dominant run, losing just one game through the two-day competition.
In the grand finals against their Turkish rivals, the Nationals eked out a pulsating 64-62 win to draw first blood before essaying a more convincing 68-60 outcome in the second game to claim the title.
MiguelCarlo took over in the clincher with 32 points and nine assists while Clue- had 12 points, four steals, three rebounds, and two assists.
eGilas came out firing through the group stage, sweeping their assignments following a 64-53 win over France, a 73-52 domination of Algeria and a 72-45 rout of Germany.
It also made quick work of Lebanon 67-58 in the upper bracket semifinals before facing its toughest challenge against France in the upper bracket finale.
The Filipinos had to dig deep and recover from a first game hiccup, 52-61 to force a deciding Game 3 with a 63-59 win in the second contest. In the winner-take-all, eGilas escaped France with a pulsating 67-64 win to reach the grand finals against Turkiye.
