Gilas Pilipinas are through to the semifinals of the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Riga despite a 96-94 loss to Georgia on Thursday.
Following a stunning upset of world No. 6 Latvia the day before, Philippines were in a strong position to finish in Group A's top two and advance to the semis -- needing only to avoid a loss by 36 points or more.
Nonetheless, an alarmingly sluggish start saw Georgia race to a 16-0 lead and Gilas only managed to get on the board with 4:50 remaining in the opening quarter.
The Georgians would lead by as much as 20 points early on in the second period but Philippines would rally to lose the quarter by just a solitary point -- and then took the third 31-19.
A tense final period would ultimately see Georgia prevail on the day by two points, but it is Gilas who will be joining Latvia as the two teams progressing from Group A.
"We've already bought our tickets to leave tomorrow, so I guess we're going to have to move them back a little bit," said Gilas coach Tim Cone, mattter-of-factly but with a wry smile, in his postgame news conference. "That's how surprised we are to be here.
"This is the first time I've felt good about losing -- really just want to compliment our guys. They went down (by) 20 and it could easily have been panic time, and they worked their way back into the game.
"We were down 20 and, one little streak here or there (for Georgia), and then we're going home and we're using those tickets we have for tomorrow.
"They really showed their resilience."
For the second time in as many days, Justin Brownlee led the way for Gilas with team-high tallies of 28 points, eight rebounds and eight assists.
This time, support came in the form of Dwight Ramos (16 points, five rebounds), Chris Newsome (13 points, six assists) and even CJ Perez (14 points) off the bench, after starter Kai Sotto -- who had 18 points and nine rebounds against Latvia -- picked up a rib injury that eventually saw him sent to hospital for further assessment.
Cone understandably waxed lyrical in his assessment of Brownlee's performance but also reserved praise for some of his depth players.
"The thing that really makes Justin special is -- number one: he is absolutely the best teammate I've ever seen in all my coaching," he stated. "Number two: he has that rare skill that, every time he plays (and) any team he plays (for), he makes the players around him better.
"That fact that we lost (Sotto) and still fought our way back into the game ... (we) got some really good bench production from Carl Tamayo and CJ Perez and Kevin Quiambao and Japeth Aguilar, our veteran and captain.
"(They) really stepped into the void and gave us big minutes in what would have been Kai's minutes."
Nonetheless, despite all of the Philippines surely now daring to dream of a return to the Olympic men's basketball tournament for the first time in 52 years, Cone is determined that his charges keep their feet on the ground.
"I hope that's not coming through our mind," he added. "We're very process-driven. We want to just stay (with) what's right in front of us.
"We don't want to look at the end game and think 'wow, what happens if we can make it to Paris?' Obviously, the country would go bonkers but that's a long way away.
"We've got this step done now and now we've got another step to take."
Following the conclusion of Group B play on Thursday evening, the semifinals will see Gilas take on Brazil after the South Americans managed to finish top despite a surprise 77-74 loss to 68th-ranked Cameroon -- who are also through as the result saw both of them overtake Montenegro.
The semis take place on Saturday before qualifying in Riga concludes with the decider the day after, with only one team advancing from this OQT to the Paris Games.