FIBA Asia 2015 Matchup Preview: Gilas Pilipinas Basketball opponent Kuwait national team will be the third game of Gilas on September 25 at Changsha China, FIBA Asia 2015 preliminaries. We dissect and analyze the strengths and weaknesses, together with the best cagers that Kuwait NT can bring against RP Five.

In the Asian Games Basketball 2014, finished 10th and defeated Mongolia, Hong Kong and Maldives. They suffered setbacks opposite to Japan and the athletic Qatar.

Although the Philippine sport a 5-2 win-loss history opposite the West Asians, Kuwait is not a dangerous basketball squad in its current roster.

Players to watch out for from Kuwait include Hamad Hasan. The 6’2 feet youthful backcourt general can slash and shoot three point bombs. Another guard to scout should be Mashari Abu Dhom, who can likewise attack the basket and shoot way beyond the arc. He is like Gabe Norwood of Gilas, and at 6’5 he can pose matchup issues. Kuwait’s best rebounder and hustle guy is 6’4 forward Abdulrahman Alshammari. Calvin Abueva will have a field day fighting against Alshammari for every possession.

Kuwait NT is bringing-in a not-so-tall squad. It is very obvious with their blow-out loss to Hong Kong, that they cannot play well against teams with big men at center and forward positions. They compensate with this nagging disadvantage using their unusually taller guards which can pose problems to opposing smaller guards.

Kuwait brings scrappy offense and crappy defense. They sometimes initiate their offense in double high pick and finish with the pick and roll or pick and pop. Most of the time, they get lazy and they just attack the basket. They can shoot treys, but this can be mitigated with a reactive challenge defense of Gilas. Kuwait’s got a lethargic center and at 6’6 feet, is not really effective.

The Middle East squad plays the man-to-man defense despite their glaring height disadvantage but sometimes switches to zone defense when needed. Kuwaitis are infamously known for reacting slow to perimeter offense, and relies heavily unto gang rebounding.

The Philippine Basketball Team should dominate Kuwait from the get-go. They should rest Andray Blatche to preserve him for the later rounds and avoid unnecessary injuries. Matt Ganuelas Rosser and Gabe Norwood should take-up the guard chores to rest dimunitive guards Terrence Romeo and Jayson Castro. It’s time for JC Intal and Sonny Thoss to step-up and show their offensive arsenal.

The Filipino dribblers must employ trapping defense since the guards of Kuwait are not skilled enough to handle RP Five’s backcourt. Combination of post-up domination and the dribble drive should bamboozle the Kuwaitis, along with accurate trey sniping, effective rebounding and suffocating defense.

The only thing noteworthy in this game is that Gilas avoid any injuries and ensure they do not fall to complacency as they did with Palestine.