Guiao, Gilas Pilipinas preparing for the worst against Kazakhstan
The Philippines handed Kazakhstan a sound beating the last time they met three months in the Asian Games in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Gilas Pilipinas cruised to a 96-59 win in a game where the Filipinos clicked on both ends which is also something national team coach Yeng Guiao admitted to be hard to replicate on Friday.
“You know we beat them I think by 30 plus points and it would be hard for us to do that again. We played really good that game,” Guiao said Monday night after practice.
“If we can beat them by one point, I’ll be happy, especially now that we’re still trying to get our cohesion going.”
Guiao is expecting a back-and-forth battle against the Kazakhs this time and the players also know they shouldn’t take their opponents lightly.
“Even the players now that we played exceptionally well. Of course, I hope we can repeat that but I think we should expect the worst,” Guiao said. “We should also expect that they’ve already made their adjustment, seeing what they saw in the Asian Games.”
“This is a different level in the qualifiers. We both want to make the World Cup and I think we need to prepare even harder against them this time because we don’t really know who are going to be the additions to their team,” veteran big man Beau Belga said.
In the Asian Games, Guiao steered a team that had players he’s very familiar with which made it easier for him to run his system fluidly.
The latest version of Gilas is made up of an entirely different core with Philippine basketball’s cream of the crop suiting up in the fifth window of the Fiba World Cup Asian qualifiers.
“Our advantage actually is we have a different lineup so they might not really know the likes of June Mar (Fajardo), Greg (Slaughter) or Marcio (Lassiter), Arwind (Santos) and that could be our advantage against them,” said Guiao, who steered a Philippine team that had a core of Rain or Shine players to a fifth-place finish in the Asiad.
“Advantage is the players are more experienced and talent-wise, this is going to be a more talented team than the one that played in the Asiad no doubt,” Belga said. “But we need to exert more effort to win and this isn’t going to be an easy game against Kazakhstan.”
