WORK TO BE DONE
It’s back to the drawing board for Gilas Pilipinas, with thoughts of what went wrong during its twin home defeats to New Zealand and Australia at the back of its mind between now and the next window.
The national cagers won’t be back until July, when it’s their turn to go Down Under to finish off the first round of the Fiba World Cup Qualifiers. How Gilas can be better by then is something coach Tim Cone, his staff and the rest of the squad will try to ponder.
While assured of getting to the next phase of the qualification for Fiba’s centerpiece event in Doha, finishing the first round strong will be crucial in hopes of getting a better shot at securing the World Cup berth.
That means getting at least one more victory will ease the possible pressure of doing more than expected in the second round when Gilas gets to face the teams from the Middle East, particularly from Group C composed of Jordan, Iran, Syria and Iraq.
“We’re going to have to play them again and see if we can find a way to steal a win or two from them,” Cone said. “But, you know, we have to also keep thinking of the bigger picture. We’re not going to lose our berth, losing to Australia and New Zealand.
“The way that we’re going to have to do it is really when we play the Middle Eastern teams. And that’s going to be at the end of the year. We’re going to have to win those games. Those are the ones that are really going to get us into the World Cup.”
Makeup questions
Gilas dropped into a tie with New Zealand at 2-2, with Australia now on top of Group A after the second window behind its perfect 4-0 slate.
Guam is virtually eliminated from contention with its 0-4 slate.
There are still questions on how the makeup of the Gilas roster will be come July, given the uncertainty of Kai Sotto’s availability and Justine Baltazar being integrated into the pool despite not being inserted in the final 12 for both games.
Cone did hint at some changes in terms of the approach.
“I think we’re going to have to look a little bit at our offense and maybe try to simplify things a little more,” said Cone, known for his Triang Offense system. “But, you know, for a game and a half, I couldn’t have been more proud about our defense. And that was one of the things we really wanted to correct coming into this window.
“If you see the moment you don’t defend, it can’t even get away from you in a hurry. And that’s exactly what happened to us in that second half.”
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