‘Easy, easy’ remark from Lebanon coach gets Gilas all fired up
CHANGSHA CITY, China – Gilas Pilipinas coach Tab Baldwin came up with a smile late Thursday night, when told that Lebanon coach Veselin Matic provided all the motivation for his charges in their Fiba Asia Championship quarterfinal duel.
“Maybe he (Matic) got them too pumped up,” Baldwin told the Inquirer on the way back to the team bus after the Filipinos plastered the Lebanese, 82-70, to barge into the Final Four opposite Japan at Changsha Social Work College gym on Friday night.
READ: Fired-up Gilas clips Lebanon, faces Japan in Fiba Asia semis
“They were a bit over-eager, and it happens,” Baldwin added.
Matic had said on Tuesday night, minutes after qualifying as the Filipinos’ Last Eight foe, that playing the Philippines was “easy, easy,” and that Andray Blatche was “out of shape.”
READ: Lebanon coach relishing underdog tag vs Gilas
Blatche and the rest of the team took it to heart after having felt insulted by those remarks.
“He was belittling us, that’s why we gave it our all tonight,” Calvin Abueva told the Inquirer after having made at least a couple of “fly-bys” in front of Matic while saying “easy, easy” during the game.
Blatche was most determined.
“We took it as a sign of disrespect. We worked hard to be where we’re at,” Blatche said. “For him (Matic) to say that we are going to be easy is a sign of disrespect.”
The Inquirer later learned that some of the players weren’t really into social media since coming over, wanting to be focused – and coupled with the slow internet connection and the firewall that bans the use of Facebook, Twitter, etc.
READ: Baldwin shrugs off Lebanon’s underdog claim vs Gilas
And when asked how the players got wind of the story on Matic, one team official said that it was Baldwin himself who wrote the phrase on the whiteboard before the game.
When asked to confirm it later on, Baldwin, while walking, gave a naughty smile this time.
“What happens in the locker room stays in the locker room,” he said.
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