WHAT MORAL WIN?
There’s no such thing as a moral victory for Gilas Pilipinas coach Tim Cone, especially not in the crucial stages of the 2027 Fiba World Cup Asian Qualifiers.
A lot can be said about the Philippines’ narrow 69-66 loss to New Zealand at the Mall of Asia Arena on Thursday night, a result that could have gone either way.
The Filipinos limited the Tall Blacks to under 70 points by playing unrelenting defense. And it was the Philippines that actually brought the fight to New Zealand, even if Justin Brownlee clearly struggled offensively.
And the Filipinos did it without Kai Sotto, their 7-foot-3 center, who opted not to play because of different reported reasons.
Team Philippines won the last time these two countries met, when Sotto had 19 points and 10 rebounds in a 93-89 win in 2024, also at the Mall of Asia Arena during the Asia Cup Qualifiers. The Kiwis have now won seven of eight collisions with the Filipinos in the last 10 years, and that is certainly not a number where moral victories could come in.
That’s why, all things considered, the National Five did a lot of commendable things against the Tall Blacks, a side that was heavily favored at game time.
But doing everything except winning certainly didn’t sit well for Cone, the winningest coach in the professional PBA, who has had a lot of memorable Gilas success, capped by the Asian Games win after 61 years in 2024.
Bumpier road
Losing simply dashed off every good thing they did on Thursday night.
“We’re not going to feel good or take pride in the fact that we got close or we almost won or whatever,” he said sternly, minutes after the loss to the Kiwis.
“I’m not going to sit here and pretend like I’m happy about our performance.”
Much of Cone’s dismay came with how Group A looked after their loss, as instead of an easy trip to the second round of the qualifiers, Gilas’ fate is not entirely in its own hands now.
Guam, a whipping boy of the Nationals, will have a say.
Not only do they have the gargantuan task of upsetting Australia on Sunday, Guam also needs to win over New Zealand for the Filipinos to qualify for the second round for the Philippines to advance outright.
And should the Nationals be unsuccessful in doing those, they will have to look at the third window in July and Cone doesn’t want to look ahead just yet. He wants Gilas to chart its own destiny.
“We’re here to win,” he said again. “We showed up to win and we didn’t do that tonight.”
He put that in plain text. And that was the reality of it all.
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