If you like watching fights between baby giraffes you’re a sicko—but you’ll also love watching this basketball punch-up in the Philippines. The fight went down between the Australian Boomers and the Gilas Pilipinas, who were competing Monday night at the World Cup qualifiers in Bocaue.It started in the remaining third quarter, with the Australians poised to win 79-48, and only four minutes left on the clock. The Filipino home team might have been feeling the pressure, as guard Roger Pogoy threw an elbow at Australia's Chris Goulding. Chris could have dodged the elbow, and walked away comfortable in the knowledge he was on the winning team, but he didn’t.
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What followed was one of the most gangly and graceless fights ever captured on video. Water bottles got thrown. Some idiot who wasn’t even a player threw a chair onto the court. A Boomers player named Thon Maker tried to do a kind of ninja kick to one of the Filipino guys. At another point about a dozen on the Philippines side piled onto a Australian player stuck on the ground. Lots of players chased each other around the court, and really, the whole thing was just embarrassing.Basketball Australia, who rarely deal with anything exciting, are now trying to explain what the hell happened. They’ve promised to make an announcement Tuesday, which will also undoubtedly double as a lot of apologising. At this point it’s unknown whether the Boomers will be disqualified, despite having ultimately won the game at 89-53.The International Basketball Federation, which for some reason carries the acronym FIBA, has announced they’ll be penalising both team as well as individual players. Who cops what will be announced later this week.The best part of the whole night, however, was at the end when the guys from Gilas Pilipinas posed for a selfie. As in a post-fight, post-losing-the-game selfie. We'll end with a tweet about that, which basically summarises the whole shit show.