By REYNALD MAGALLON
Gilas Pilipinas is not one to be content with moral victories.
While the Nationals earned praise for putting up a fight in their 83-74 loss to a higher ranked Turkey in their tuneup game in Istanbul, the outcome still left Gilas in disappointment as it only showed that the team is still far from where it wants to be.
With only more than a week left before the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Riga, Latvia, the Gilas coaching staff stressed that they cannot be satisfied with “almost winning”, noting that they need to get the job done if they wish to make it to the Paris Olympics.
“While others may see it as a satisfying first game, our team mindset is – almost is not enough. We only have one shot at making it to the Olympics and we cannot be satisfied with almost winning,” said Gilas lead assistant and team manager Richard del Rosario.
Gilas displayed its ability to be competitive against the world No. 25 Turkey, hanging tough in the first half and only trailed by two, 42-40, at the break.
When the home team appeared to be pulling away in the second half, the Filipinos provided answers and came back twice from double digit deficits – the last one, the largest at 11, 76-65, with under five minutes left in the fourth.
Behind Justin Brownlee and June Mar Fajardo, Gilas unloaded a 10-2 burst to come within three, 78-75, before ultimately fading down the stretch as Tarik Biberovic delivered the dagger triple with 51 seconds left.
“It was a tough loss against Turkey. We had our first taste of the type of opposition we will be facing in the OQT,” said Del Rosario, whose Gilas got torched by 14 triples from Turkey against the Filipinos’ five.
Their defense also had room for improvement especially with Kai Sotto failing to make his presence felt after picking up three fouls in the first half alone.
These are areas Gilas needs to improve if it aims to pull the rug from under Latvia and Georgia in OQT and get a legitimate shot at punching its ticket to Paris. Gilas has one more tuneup game against world No. 15 Poland to try and tighten up its screws.
“We move on to the next game with a firmer belief that we can hold our own against higher ranked teams with a real chance of reaching our mission of making it to Paris,” he added.
