FIBA Asia Cup 2017
Gilas Pilipinas will be focusing on next month’s fight at the Asia Cup and the Southeast Asian Games of basketball. Garnering the 4th place behind South Korea, Lithuania and Canada, the national team representing the Philippines were “shy” of the podium finish during their last game at the William Jones Cup held in Taiwan.
Gilas Pilipinas will fight!
Head Coach Chot Reyes said that despite their problems, the team showed a great fight in finishing the game. The head coach also added that regardless of all of our problems, no one is going to outfight them (national team).
“We might get into fights, we might get into bad situations but we’re not gonna be outfought.” He said.
“Winning is nice, getting a medal is nice, but hopefully you see the Gilas story – the strive, the story of every Filipino… We’re just going to fight like crazy.” He added.
During a press at the Marco Polo Hotel in Ortigas, Coach Reyes said that the “We (the tean) must beat China”. After their defeat in the 2015 FIBA Asia final, the Philippine team had assured their best comeback and beating China in the finals.
“Is it the same team? Mga 50/50 siguro (maybe 50/50). Because China built two separate teams (China Red and China Blue) …They played different lineups, different combinations. Those teams have different coaches, running different systems.” Coach Reyes said.
FIBA Asia Cup 2017
The FIBA Asia Cup 2017 will be held in Beirut, Lebanon on August 8-20, 2017. With only a few days from the starting games, the Gilas Pilipinas team are practicing harder and harder. Meanwhile, the double logged duties for Gilas will be training even harder than the rest. Fil-German Christian Standhardinger and Carl Bryan Cruz is included in both FIBA and SEA Games rosters.
