By JONAS TERRADO
Coach Chot Reyes can now put his full focus on Gilas Pilipinas after concluding TNT’s grueling PBA Governors’ Cup schedule of four games in seven days by winning its last two games in convincing fashion.
Reyes steered the Tropang Giga to a split after winning the last two games, including a 119-82 romp of Barangay Ginebra San Miguel last Friday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum which saw them erupt for 21 three-pointers.
TNT’s dominant performance came two days after pulling away in the fourth to take down San Miguel Beer, 96-81.
“I really thought if we could come out of it at 2-2. I think that would be a pretty good record. Very fortunate to escape with that,” said Reyes, who encountered troubles at the start of the stretch with losses to Magnolia Pambansang Manok and Phoenix Super LPG, the latter ending in a 93-92 heartbreaker.
With the TNT campaign put on the wayside, Reyes can hopefully turn Gilas close to a well-oiled machine with less than a week before the FIBA World Cup Asian Qualifiers takes place at the Big Dome.
Reyes’ 22-man pool composed of TNT players, a couple from Japan’s B.League and remaining full-time Gilas members will have their work cut out as they brace for two meetings with South Korea and one each against India and New Zealand.
He’s also hoping to get some injured players ready in time for the qualifiers, particularly RR Pogoy who has been missing the TNT games after hurting his calf in practice.
Pogoy is still included in the pool after he was initially left off the list put out by FIBA on its website earlier in the week.
“I won’t hide it. It’s been a struggle, really,” Reyes said. “It’s been a huge challenge for me, the players, the coaching staff.
“At least now, we can focus on the job at hand in the coming week. We still haven’t made up our mind who’s going to make any kind of final roster so now we can put our effort and my 100 percent focus on figuring it out.
“We just wanted to put in some fundamentals for the team, make sure we would be able to put in a competitive team for the window and now we’re going to look at this, the last five days of practice, as our final preparation for the task at hand.”
