Justin Brownlee leads Gilas Pilipinas anew within the Fiba Asia Cup qualifiers. –MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.net
Up by 43 with about seven minutes left within the ball game, naturalized ace Justin Brownlee checked in for Gilas Pilipinas on Sunday night against Chinese Taipei.
The remaining of the starters—Kai Sotto, Dwight Ramos, Calvin Oftana and Scottie Thompson—followed shortly even with the sport already beyond doubt.
The intention was to not rub the blowout win within the visitors’ faces, but somewhat make up for the only a few times that the new-look Gilas Pilipinas might be playing together heading into its big test this July.
“We weren’t attempting to run up the rating by bringing in the primary group. It was a chance for us to get that first group to exit and play together,” national coach Tim Cone said on the heels of a 106-53 rout at PhilSports Arena in Pasig City.
“Every opportunity for us goes to be precious because we’ve got limited opportunities. We now have to do it that way. [We are] not like other teams,” he added.
Gilas swept the opening window of the Fiba (International Basketball Federation) Asia Cup Qualifiers, pocketing two big wins over Hong Kong and Chinese Taipei that many thought the squad would easily take.
But those are the one games the Nationals can be playing before they tackle fearsome European teams within the Olympic Qualifying Tournament (OQT) in Riga, Latvia, this July.
“You mostly wish you had more time to arrange,” Cone said with a sigh. “I wish we could keep this thing going but that’s out of our control so we’ll live with what we’ve got and that’s our challenge. That’s a part of our big challenge.”
4-month gap
The gap between Gilas’ latest win and its next task, which dangles one last pathway into the Summer Olympic Games in Paris, France, is somewhat over 4 months. Quite a bit could occur inside that period, from injuries to profession movements.
Brownlee might be ineligible to play within the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA)—a minimum of for now—because the league might be holding the Philippine Cup, a tournament exclusive just for locals. The PBA standouts won’t be available as well, as they might be fulfilling club duties identical to Sotto, Ramos and AJ Edu with their respective teams within the Japanese B. League.
“We were just talking within the locker room about how this type of seems like an ending. We won’t play until one other three or 4 months. And so it form of seems like an ending for us. We wish we had another game to play next week or in a few days but that’s not something we control,” Cone said.
“But I don’t think there’s one guy in our team not looking forward to [July] and getting back together and getting this thing going again.”
Nevertheless it’s not like Cone and his brain trust plan to only let the times go by before the team plunges into the OQT, where World No. 8 Latvia and higher-ranked Georgia await.
“The agreement is that we got 10 days before we actually play our first game against Latvia. In order that may be 10 days here, Encourage camp day-after-day or perhaps it’s going out and trying to search out some friendlies against European teams so we are able to get a feel for the way in which they play. we haven’t all figured that out yet but we’re within the midst of figuring it out,” he said.
Invitations
“We’ve got some invitations from Lithuania, from Slovenia and the Czech Republic. We’re gonna work our way through those and see what we are able to do. However the window for us to do is barely 10 days [to train].”
Cone also knows that this system must construct on the gains the team has made this week.
“This 2-0 start is great, but that’s somewhat baby step on the way in which. We want to make lots more greater strides as we go as the following game we play is Latvia, which is Top 8 (on the earth). And so they just beat Spain a few days ago. So we got them and Georgia coming up. So can we get to that level?” he said.
“That is a superb start, however the goal is greater than the role,” said Sotto, who starred alongside Brownlee once more within the triumph on Sunday night. “These are baby steps—nevertheless big—as that is the start.”
“We now have more time to enhance and gel together. We’re only going to improve. Hopefully, when the [OQT comes] we’re way higher and prepared,” he added.
Meanwhile, Jamie Malonzo was conspicuously absent within the shellacking of Chinese Taipei. Cone said that his ward was out as a result of a medical condition, adding that he had caught a virus.
“Jamie, we contemplated bringing him to the hospital, he’s that down and out. Hopefully, he’ll bounce back and improve. We sent our doctors to him and put him on [intravenous therapy],” he said.
“I believe perhaps a number of the guys just got severely dehydrated on the trip and we didn’t hydrate well enough. I’ve got to be more cognizant of that and ensure that that guys are doing that higher. Form of like a travel fatigue. That’s really on us to ensure that that doesn’t occur. Viruses are in every single place so that you never know when someone’s going to select something up.”
Nonetheless, some contested Cone’s explanation across several Inquirer platforms, showing a clip of an person that resembled Malonzo figuring in a fistfight inside a restaurant. INQ
