Justin Brownlee doesn’t have the heart—or the guts, really—to let down the millions of basketball-crazed Filipinos back home and around the globe, especially not the ones who stayed glued to their screens through 2 a.m. on a Tuesday, Manila time, praying to the basketball gods for a miracle.
And sure enough, with 8.4 seconds left on the clock and Gilas Pilipinas down three to host nation Saudi Arabia, 73-76, head coach Tim Cone drew up a play that’s been etched into Brownlee’s muscle memory. It was simple: give the man the ball and let him work some magic behind the arc.
With just over three ticks left and a defender clinging like duct tape, Brownlee gave the poor soul a slight shove with his left arm, took aim, and let it fly from deep. The ball hung in the air like it had somewhere else to be—and then dropped straight through the net. Swish. The Filipino fans in the stands—mostly migrant workers in Jeddah—blew the roof off the King Abdullah Sports City gym.
Saudi Arabia, maybe stunned or maybe just out of answers, fired off a desperation three that clanged short. Overtime.
That’s when the Gilas kids showed up. Kevin Quiambao and AJ Edu poured in 17 points apiece, each burying clutch threes in extra time and combining for seven of the team’s 23 assists. Brownlee finished with 29 points and 5 assists.
The final score, 95-88. Regulation ended knotted at 76.
“It was a familiar play that we’ve drawn up. Somehow, I just shot it, and it went in,” Brownlee said afterward. “But this is a great team win.”
Cone tipped his hat to the Saudis, who went winless in this tournament four years ago in Indonesia. “It was a special game. It was a special performance by both teams. The home team really came to play and they were phenomenal,” he said, singling out Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman’s sniping (33 points, 24 from three) and Mohammed Alsuwailem’s muscle inside (26 points, 14 rebounds).
Now, Gilas faces Australia—the Great Barrier Reef of basketball, two-time defending FIBA Asia Cup champs—regional tournament played every four years, and heavy favorites to three-peat. FIBA included Australia and New Zealand in the Asian region in 2017.
“That’s not going to be an easy road,” Brownlee said. “But we will give it all we got.”
The quarterfinals match between Gilas and Australia is scheduled Wednesday in Saudi Arabia.
