A familiar refrain among fans and pundits alike with Gilas Pilipinas of late is that the team has no shooters. And, in two games against New Zealand and Australia, the nationals seemingly proved as much, going 16-for-68 from distance for an atrocious 23.5% clip.
Look back even further and there’s the FIBA Asia Cup, where the Philippines shot just 30.1% from the arc, making about 8 of their 29 attempts per game. The numbers, in other words, appear to suggest that, indeed, Gilas Pilipinas doesn’t have the kind of dead-eye shooters needed in today’s brand of international basketball.
Gilas Pilipinas Has Shooters, Says Tim Cone
National team coach Tim Cone, though, believes otherwise. He actually thinks Gilas has more than enough shooters, naming Dwight Ramos, Juan Gomez de Liaño, Justin Brownlee, Kevin Quiambao, and Calvin Oftana, in particular.
“We got shooters…,” Cone told reporters in the aftermath of Australia’s 93-66 thrashing of Gilas Pilipinas on Sunday. “I think everybody complains about our team. We don’t have shooters. [But] we got Dwight [Ramos]. We got Juan [Gomez de Liaño]. We got Justin [Brownlee]. We got KQ [Kevin Quiambao]… we have the shooters on the team.”
More than the perceived lack of shooters, Cone is apparently more worried about his team not getting quality looks.
“It’s just that we’re not generating the shots that we want to generate,” Cone pointed out. “It’s not about the shots going in or out. It’s about getting the quality of shots… We have to kind of look at what we’re doing, maybe simplify a little bit more so that we can get a little bit more open looks. But I don’t think there’s a problem with our shooting. We just haven’t shot the ball that well.”
Cone is right. Gilas Pilipinas hasn’t shot the ball well—not against Australia, not against New Zealand, and not in the FIBA Asia Cup. Whether he’s right about Ramos and company being good shooters is another discussion altogether.
