By Adrian Stewart Co

Gilas Pilipinas 3×3 team is in a must-win situation in their two remaining matches in the 2021 FIBA 3×3 Olympic Qualifying Tournament tonight at the Hauptplatz in Graz, Austria.

The national men’s 3×3 basketball team needs to sweep its remaining Group C matches against Dominican Republic at 5:50 p.m. and France at 7:55 in the evening to keep its 2020 Tokyo Olympics hopes alive.

The Joshua Munzon, Jaymar Perez, Moala Tautuaa and Leonard Santillan-led Gilas team is at the cellar of Group C with 0-2 slate after bowing to Qatar (21-12) and Slovenia (21-11) on Wednesday evening.

Gilas struggled early against Qatar with the latter surging to a 7-0 start behind Nedim Muslic. Santillan and Munzon trimmed the deficit for the Gilas at 5-10 but Qatar leaned on the exploits of Muslic and Seydou Ndoye to widen the lead further to 14-6.

Perez tried his best to lift the Gilas back into the game but Abdulrahman Saad caught fire with consecutive outside hits for a 19-11 lead before Muslic wrapped up the game with a two-pointer.

Against the world-power Slovenia later in the day, the Ronnie Magsanoc-mentored Gilas was a disappointment as their opponent surged to a 15-3 lead behind Gašper Ovnik and Simon Finzgar.

Munzon did his best to keep the Filipinos afloat with his inside conversions but Slovenia kept blowing by the defense of Gilas’ Tautuaa for easy buckets before Ovnik and Finzgar sealed the deal for Slovenia with their freebies.

Only the top two teams of each of the four groups will move on to the knockout stage, where the winner of the semis and third-place games will book a slot for the Summer Games.

In the event of a tiebreaker, points scored will be used to determine the teams which will progress to the next phase. The Philippines currently has a total of 23 points after two games./ASC, WDJ