“What Reyes actually meant was for his players to foul early.”

Not because we do not share the more popular sentiment of supporting our basketball team in “mauling” their Australian opponents in the FIBA qualifying tournament game the other night could we be considered less patriotic.

Don’t get me wrong. If I was caught in the middle of such situation, I would not hesitate for a second to lend a hand to my fellow Filipinos no matter what, whoever is right or wrong. But as soon as the smoke clears, it’s then time to assess who is right or wrong and no amount of reasoning could justify converting a supposedly friendly ballgame into a fisticuff.

And it pains me a lot to see numerous posts in the social media urging everyone to stand by our basketball team without bothering to know who even started it all. Posts like “Laban Pinoy,” Hindi n’yo kami kaya kahit maliit kami,” abound. Worse, even Smart Gilas head coach Chot Reyes has been trying to justify what his players did. When, in fact, he could be the one who should bear the brunt of the responsibility over that incident.

Reyes insists it was Australian Daniel Kickert who instigated the ruckus that led to the brawl when he hit Matthew Wright during the pre-game warm-up.

“But the reality is (Daniel) Kickert was hitting our players during the warm-ups. He was the one who came in and decked (RR) Pogoy for the fifth time. You can’t expect to do that to a team for five times and not expect them to retaliate. Unfortunate as it is, you have to be there to know what really went down,” Reyes was quoted as saying.

But a video clip of the pre-game warm-up reveals it was Cris Abueva who tried to trip Kickert from behind the mid-court as the two teams were doing round robins.

Thinking it was Wright who tried to trip him, Kickert pushed the Fil-Am player, triggering a commotion.

Then, a couple of plays before hell broke loose, Reyes called for a timeout but he was caught on video telling his boys, “Hit somebody. Put somebody on his ass.”

About 30 seconds after the timeout, Pogoy shoved Nathan Sobey, sending the Australian to the floor, prompting Kickert to throw a hard elbow to Pogoy’s chin. A free-for-all melee then ensued. Unfortunately, posts on the social media point to the Kickert elbow on Pogoy as the one which allegedly triggered the riot, totally ignoring the latter’s hard charge on Sobey.

Now, going back to Reyes’ statement, many were quick to defend him, saying his players might have taken his words – “Hit somebody” – literally, and that led to the brawl.

According to them, what Reyes actually meant was for his players to foul early.

Sorry, but I don’t buy that line of reasoning. In Reyes’ own words, he admitted he was aware players from both teams were hurting each other. He even singled out Kickert as having sent Pogoy down five times and that one cannot expect (Pogoy) not to retaliate.

So, if he was aware of that, why should he give an instruction for his boys to hit somebody? Why not just tell them to foul early before their opponents get near the basket. I just don’t see “Hit somebody” rhyming with “Foul early.”

Now, are we to condemn fellow Filipinos (including me and Chino Trinidad who said the incident brought our country shame), for not standing behind our national team in this infamous brawl?

This is not an issue of patriotism. This is not an issue of national security or sovereignty but an international competition aimed, ironically, at fostering global harmony.

Maybe it’s about time we revisit our concept of nationalism and patriotism.