Gilas Pilipinas Boys Under-17‘s Cletz Amos against Lithuania in the 2024 FIBA Basketball World Cup. Photo from FIBA.

MANILA — The Gilas Pilipinas Men's Under-17 team received a rude welcome in the 2024 FIBA U17 Basketball World Cup.

The young Filipino dribblers were dominated by Lithuania, 107-48, in their first game of the tournament on Saturday at the Sinan Erdem Dome in Turkey.

Leading the Josh Reyes-coached squad was Cletz Amos who tallied 10 points, three rebounds, a steal, and a block, while Kurt Velasquez and Bonn Daja finished with eight and seven, respectively.

With Gilas only trailing by seven, 26-19, as Kurt Velasquez and Cletz Amos opened the second with back-to-back triples, world-ranked No.7 Lietuva suddenly scored nine straight points to increase their lead to 11, 30-19, with over seven minutes left in the quarter.

The Nationals remained within striking distance and were only down by nine, 34-25 midway through the same frame, but this was when Lithuania engaged in a higher gear to break away from their Filipino counterparts.

Lithuania suddenly charged on a 12-to-0 run to extend their lead to 21, and their lead even ballooned to as much as 63, 105-42, late in the fourth canto as the game progressed, and this proved to be too much for the Filipinos as they dropped to 0-1 in Group A.

Lithuania young star Arturas Butajevas. Photo from FIBA.Leading the Lithuanians was 6-foot-9, 17-year-old Arturas Butajevas who had 22 points, and nine rebounds, while helping him were Kajus Mikalauskas (15 points, three rebounds, two steals), Erikas Sirgedas (14 points, five rebounds, four assists), and Dovydas Buika (12 points, six assists, five steals), as they moved up to 1-0.

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Gilas, who is missing young star Kieffer Alas, is now hoping to quickly move on from their defeat as they will be returning to action tomorrow to face the world’s No.2 Spain at 10:30 p.m., Manila time.