Chot Reyes. Photo by Tristan Tamayo/ INQUIRER.net
Gilas Pilipinas coach Chot Reyes minced no words in blasting his wards following their 81-76 loss to Alab Pilipinas in a exhibition game Saturday at Meralco Gym.
“We sucked big time. If we play like this we better not even go to Japan, we have no chance,” a disappointed Reyes said.
With one week of practice already under its belt, the Philippine national team struggled to fend off Alab, .
Only Jayson Castro and June Mar Fajardo were able to crack double-digits for Gilas, which allowed Alab import Reggie Okosa to have his way down low in the closed-door tuneup game.
Gilas was listless and Reyes didn’t have the gall to point out any silver linings from the exhibition game less than two weeks before the 2019 Fiba World Cup qualifying duel against Japan on November 24 in Tokyo.
“No positives at all. We need to improve on a lot. We need to learn how to play basketball. With the way we played, we looked like we don’t know how to play basketball. We can’t shoot, we can’t defend, we can’t rebound,” he said.
“We better find a way to fix that. Hopefully, we have enough time. That’s something we need to fix, even before we think about Japan.”
Reyes commended Alab, which he think dominated Gilas in all aspects of the game during their scrimmage.
“Credit to Alab, they came in they were very prepared. They outplayed us, they outfought us, they outhustled us, they outshot us. I can’t think of one positive thing in today’s ballgame,” he said.
Help is on its way for Gilas with naturalized player Andray Blatche set to arrive on Monday.