Kevin Alas —PHOTOS FROM FIBA
With 5 extra new faces to combine into his system and a shrinking window to just do that, Tim Cone’s job to prime Gilas Pilipinas for the nineteenth Asian Video games (Asiad) has develop into a lot, a lot more durable.
His confidence, nonetheless, stays unchanged.
“It doesn’t change our strategy to how we do issues. Our aim continues to be to try to win a gold medal,” the interim nationwide coach instructed a pair of reporters on Tuesday.
“That’s at all times gonna be our aim. We’re not going on the market pondering silver or bronze, we’re gonna go on the market on the lookout for a gold,” he went on.
Gilas Pilipinas is holding its breath on the provision of Calvin Abueva, Jason Perkins, Terrence Romeo and Mo Tautuaa as they don’t seem to be included in a brand new listing that the Hangzhou Asian Video games Organizing Committee is at present utilizing as a reference.
CJ Perez, Chris Ross, Arvin Tolentino and Kevin Alas have been known as up as contingency measures for the 4 who’ve been laborious at coaching with Cone at Encourage Sports activities Academy in Calamba, Laguna province. Marcio Lassiter, in the meantime, steps in for Roger Pogoy who withdrew from the marketing campaign because of a medical situation.
A decision is predicted to be identified within the coming days, or proper earlier than the contingent leaves for Hangzhou, China.
Calvin Abueva —PHOTOS FROM FIBA
For now, Cone is simply glad {that a} Plan B has been put into movement as he can now give attention to the issues that matter.
“Our focus is our course of. It’s what we did this observe, it’s what we do subsequent observe,” he stated. “For me, personally, how do I put out all of the fires that’s popping out? One fireplace at a time … This is without doubt one of the issues we wanna cope with, the lineup. And to the general public, being clear, letting them know what’s occurring. That was one of many fires we needed to place out.”
“The following fireplace is I acquired a number of guys in observe so I acquired to determine find out how to educate the blokes who simply got here up and nonetheless persevering with to show the blokes who’ve been there and maintain them going,” he added.
Cone is bracing for disjointed practices, and rightfully so. The reinforcements have simply joined the camp in Laguna, and he feels that it’ll take time for them to get a great really feel of what this version of the nationwide 5 goes to place forth. However he’s retaining the religion.
No strangers
“Once we play collectively, it’s [going to be] very disruptive, as a result of a number of the blokes don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t know the performs, they don’t know the actions,” he stated.
“Excellent news is Encourage has many courts so we will put guys on this court docket; some guys are on that court docket. And it’s good that the blokes in query are nonetheless with us to assist us put the brand new guys [in the loop],” he added.
Additionally retaining Cone’s optimism excessive is that the 5 newcomers are actually no strangers.
Lassiter, Ross, Tolentino and Perez all served with him within the gold-medal reclaiming Gilas squad within the Southeast Asian Video games final summer season. Alas’ basketball smarts being a coach’s son, in the meantime, would enable him to select up schemes and techniques with ease.
“Defensively, I feel we’re gonna be OK, we’re not going to lose an excessive amount of. Offensively we’ve acquired so much to catch up for,” he stated.
“Hopefully, we’ll catch these guys up a bit of bit. It received’t occur by the point we play the Koreans. I believed we’ll be actually up there once we play the Koreans and we may placed on a great present. Now I’m not so certain. However we’re gonna get there and that’s our aim.” INQ
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