By WAYLON GALVEZ
Gilas Pilipinas coach Tim Cone is one person who hates to makes excuses, but for one rare occasion, the multi-titled mentor blamed his players’ seeming lack of energy in a 93-89 defeat to San Miguel Alab Pilipinas in a tune-up game Monday night at the Meralco gym in Pasig City.
“I hate losing. As a national team, I really hate losing,” said Cone. “I don’t want to make excuses, but I thought we played a little tired. We didn’t have the energy we had the last game.”
“And they did some things to us that we weren’t prepared like a lot of switching, which we haven’t worked on with three, four practices. They did a good job against our pick and roll.”
It was the second friendly game for the national team against the Alab squad of the ASEAN Basketball League (ABL), which played with three imports this time in Adrian Forbes, Khalif Wyatt, and Nick King.
Unlike in their 98-95 win over Alab last week, the Nationals struggled in both ends.
Despite the setback, Cone took the loss positively.
“The good news is we battled, guys are pulling for each other all the time,” said Cone. “We were unselfish. We tried hard on defense although we were disorganized. Those are all the positives that we want to move forward on.”
“It’s a step back, but I think it’s a good a step back that we have. So we understand how hard this is going to be, this is not going to come easy. This is a good message for everybody.”
“I hope it’s a step back for a two-step forward,” said Cone, who got 14 points from Roger Pogoy, and 12 points apiece from Japeth Aguilar and PBA’s reigning five-time MVP June Mar Fajardo.
The tune up games are all part of Cone’s preparation for the national team, which will be aiming for the gold medal in the 30th Southeast Asian Games the country is hosting on Nov. 30 to Dec. 11.
Gilas played minus injured players Greg Slaughter (thumb) and Troy Rosario (Achilles), but finally had Kiefer Ravena in action – a late addition replacing guard Jayson Castro.
Nevertheless, the veteran mentor expressed confidence that both Slaughter and Rosario will be able to comeback. Cone said there is a one-week window before the biennial meet where they can have practice session for consecutive days and really get their focus.
“It’s very hard to have one practice and come back a week later and try to build on what you did a week ago because they forget it already, because they’re back to their mother team,” he said.
“We still have that one week prior to the SEA Games.”
