Reyes: Japan and Taipei ‘very similar’

Photo from Fiba.com

Gilas Pilipinas coach Chot Reyes said the similarities between Japan and Chinese Taipei made him decide not to tinker with the lineup.

“We decided to no longer make any changes with our roster because Japan and Chinese Taipei are very similar in their make up. We won, so why make a change?” Reyes said Sunday after wrapping up the team’s afternoon practice session at Meralco Gym.

Reyes will parade the same lineup on Monday vs Taipei at Smart Araneta coliseum with naturalized player Andray Blatche and chief point guard Jayson Castro William leading the way.

Completing the roster are June Mar Fajardo, Gabe Norwood, Calvin Abueva, Japeth Aguilar, Allein Maliksi, Troy Rosario, Kevin Alas, Roger Pogoy, Matthew Wright, and Kiefer Ravena.

Though Reyes didn’t make any changes and opted to keep Raymond Almazan, Mac Belo, and Carl Bryan Cruz in the team’s reserve list, he made it clear that he wasn’t satisfied with how the Philippines played against Japan.

“Obviously, I’m not (satisfied). Even far from it. But the important thing is we won, so we’ll take that,” he said, hammering to his boys of the mistakes they committed against the Akatsuki Five, namely the paltry field goal shooting, the high turnover rate, and the opposing team’s offensive rebounding.

The Philippines is coming off a 77-71 win over Japan on Friday in Tokyo but Reyes warned his wards against complacency.

 “There’s a chance that they can always spring some surprises against us and were unable to do that in their game against Australia.”

“We know them pretty well. A lot of their players are the players that we’ve played with against before. So we focused on their individual tendencies and just knowing the players we’re guarding. We just have to be prepared,” he said.