PH wheelchair 5 breaks ice vs China in Hangzhou Asian Para Games

HANGZHOU – The national men’s wheelchair basketball team breaks the ice for Team Philippines against host China no less at the start of the 4th Hangzhou Asian Para Games basketball tournament at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium today.

The Filipino cagers , who will make their debut in the continental meet, take to the floor against the Chinese at 4:15 p.m., with coach Vernon Perea bent on stifling the reputed lethal outside shooting of their hosts in opening Group A action.

“If we can defend well against the outside shooting of the Chinese, we may have a chance against them. But admittedly it will be a hard and tough match for us ,” said the bespectacled mentor of the challenges they face.

The Pilipinas Warriors, as the PH men’s wheelchair squad is known, earned their trip here after finishing third in the International Wheelchair Basketball Federation Asia-Oceania Championships last May in Suphanburi, Thailand behind Kuwait and Thailand.

This success was followed by the PH wheelchair quintet securing a pair of silvers in the men’s 3x3 and 5x5 competitions of the Cambodia ASEAN Para Games a month later.

In the build-up to the Hangzhou Asian Para Games, Perea’s charges captured the bronze medal in the Yutaka Nakamura Asian Dream Cup International Wheelchair Basketball Tournament in Japan last July.

Perea bared that they wound up in a tough group that also includes Iran, Thailand, Afghanistan in the outing backed by the Philippine Sports Commission.

He bared on the eve of the opening match that the team’s morale was be high after they won a tune-up match with the Taiwanese 42-36 Wednesday morning before the meet takes a two-day break

Without revealing their total game plan, Perea said that “we can connect with our inside passes because I believe that our players can battle the Chinese on even terms in and around the basket.”

The Pilipinas Warriors play the Afghans on Friday before the tournament takes a two-day respite for the opening on Sunday.

One-armed taekwondo jin Alain Ganapin (left) with coach Gershon Bautista.