The Jordanian National team – known popularly as Al Nashama – showed enough character, courage, conviction and most importantly capabilities to live true to its nickname and carved out a 75-61 win against Philippines that put the WABA team in its first ever FIBA Asia Championship final.

Philippines gave millions of fans back home a lot to cheer by making the semifinals of the FIBA Asia Championship for the first time in 24 years with a comeback 95-78 win against Chinese Taipei on Friday.

Unlike the other games naturalized center Marcus Douthit was in prime form early in the game, but for the third night running, Philippines had to fight back a deficit before beating an enthusiastic Syria 75-52, thus winning all their three engagements in Group F on Wednesday.

Philippines ran a 26-12 third quarter – which included a 10-0 run which brought them back into the reckoning in the game – that eventually helped them beat Japan 83-76 thus handing the latter’s first defeat in the competition here.

Naturalized center Marcus Douthit raised the bar of his performance to the next level in the second half, and with the ‘just cleared’ Marcio Lassiter playing a very good second fiddle, Philippines rallied from a first half stutter to beat Jordan 72-64 in a pivotal Group F game on Monday.