Gilas Pilipinas may have lost their second game at the Olympic Qualifying Tournament to Georgia, 96-94, on Friday, July 5, but this hardly mattered. The Philippine team still advanced to the semifinal stages of the FIBA OQT for finishing second by virtue of better points difference.

Justin Brownlee, being referred to as the Michael Jordan of the Philippines, had another spectacular performance with 28 points on 11 of 18 shooting from the field while adding eight rebounds and eight assists.

“We already had our tickets to leave tomorrow, we’ve bought the tickets. I guess we have to move them back a little bit. That’s how surprised we are,” Gilas head coach Tim Cone said.

“We’ve been saying, it’s the first time I felt good about losing.”

A fresh Georgia side jumped on Gilas from the start as they built a 16-0 lead, basically erasing the 18-point buffer the Philippines had. However, Brownlee started the counterattack for Gilas as they chipped away at the lead to be down only by 11, 28-17 at the end of the first.

Georgia built their biggest lead at 20 points, 40-20, early in the second but Gilas went on their biggest scoring run of the game with an 11-0 counter to get back into the match.

“We talked about coming into this game that Georgia will come with a great energy and level of desperation,” Cone added. “But it was still pulling your teeth to get them ready. It was like a train coming at you, you just have to take the hit. And that’s just what we did.”

The Philippines had an explosive third quarter, outscoring Georgia 31-19. They got a short taste of the lead but settled for a 74-74 deadlock heading into the final period.

CJ Perez scored 12 of his 14 points in the final quarter to make sure Georgia will not be able to build a double-digit lead.

Dwight Ramos and Chris Newsome were once again solid with a combined 29 points.

Gilas Pilipinas will face Brazil on Saturday, July 6 at 8:30 PM (PHT) in the semifinals.