Tim Cone, as usual, didn’t sugarcoat his feelings after Gilas Pilipinas dropped its opening game in the 20th Asian Games on Friday against Bahrain. In a nutshell, he described the performance overall as disappointing, though he is still optimistic that the team will bounce back and “be better.”
“I just have to say that I’m, well, we’re very disappointed in the way we played. We expect a lot more out of ourselves. Being basketball-crazy fans, we really expect more,” Cone told One Sports. “And so we’re disappointed. But at some point, you can be disappointed only long enough, [and] you’ve got to move on. This is only the first game of the tournament, so we’ve got to move on. But we feel, we know we can play better than we did today.”
Gilas Can Play Better
Gilas Pilipinas will, indeed, have to play better. Once more, it started sluggishly, surrendering a 29-21 first quarter to an inspired Bahraini side reinforced by four naturalized players. The nationals also shot a measly 38% from the field and 29% from the arc in a game where they led for a grand total of only 18 seconds.
If it is any consolation, maybe Cone is right in that Gilas Pilipinas can actually play better. For all their flaws in that 89-85 loss to Bahrain, there were some positives to build on, and that’s likely why the veteran mentor is still confident despite the setback.
“I think we will [play better],” Cone stressed. “We won the boards and we won the assists. We had like 19 more shots than the other team. So, usually you look at those stats alone, then you would think that we had won the basketball game. But we had a hard time with their size. Even though we won the rebounds, we had a hard time defending their size, forced us to collapse down on their bigs because we were undersized and that either allowed them to score inside or allowed them to kick out for three-point shots…”
True enough, Gilas Pilipinas outrebounded Bahrain, 51-35, with a heavy 21-7 advantage on the offensive glass to boot. The nationals also had 26 assists to Bahrain’s 23, committed fewer turnovers, 8 to 10, and had more fastbreak points, 23 to 16. The Gilas bench also outgunned their Bahraini counterparts, 46 to 30.
‘We Can Be Successful,’ Cone Insists
Those positives are probably the reason Cone is maintaining a positive mindset moving forward, even insisting that Gilas Pilipinas will still end up successful when all is said and done.
“It was a difficult defensive job we had at that particular time. But our guys did do a really good job of chasing and using their quickness on the rebounds. If we can continue to do that and then shoot the ball a little better and get everybody more involved, then I think we can be successful this tournament,” he said.
But for Gilas Pilipinas to have any kind of success in these Asian Games, they will have to start with beating Kazakhstan later tonight at the Aichi International Arena.
