Gilas Pilipinas, though, wasn’t able to go through unscathed, falling to Palestine before bouncing back with huge blowout wins against Hong Kong and Kuwait, carrying over a 1-1 record (with only games against fellow qualifiers counting) to next round.
Now, they will face much tougher competition when they take on Japan, India and defending champion Iran in the crossover second round – and Gilas coach Tab Baldwin is hopeful that the squad will have little trouble staying motivated and focused after displaying some troubling habits in their opening assignments.
“Sometimes with this team and perhaps endemic in the Philippine mentality – and we’ve seen this in the three years I’ve been with this program – we’ve seen the team kind of drop the ball in situations where maybe the expectations were a little bit low for the team and we’ve seen the team rise to the occasion when the expectations were high,” Baldwin said after his team’s 110-64 victory on Friday.
“We have high expectations now, for the next round and for the remainder of the tournament.”
The Philippines was touted as one of the contenders for this year’s crown, along with Iran and host China.
But a shock defeat in the first round against Palestine in a game where they led by double figures multiple times but failed to show enough killer instinct to put the game away. Though they fared much better in the games against Hong Kong and Kuwait, which they won by 51 and 46 points respectively, the Filipinos still showed some lapses, particularly on the defensive end.
They’ll have less trouble getting up for their games against the three qualifiers from Group A but that won’t mean the contests will get any easier. Iran is widely considered to be the best team in the tournament, Japan has been in sharp form and India can give the Philippines trouble with its size.
Still, the Philippines’ coach believes that Gilas still has an extra gear it can go to and is hopeful that the high-pressure games in the next round and, hopefully, the knockout rounds, can bring it out of them.
“We have our job cut out for us, the coaching staff and the players, for the next several games. And we expect to rise to the challenge,” Baldwin said.
SOURCE: INTERAKSYON.COM