Gilas Pilipinas Basketball

An embattled Gilas Pilipinas will try to go all out for one of 14 remaining World Cup tickets when they play in the sixth and final window of the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup Asian Qualifiers this weekend.

After a disappointing fifth window last December which saw them lost back to back games in their home floor, the Philippines will have to sweep Qatar and Kazakhstan in their last two games to have a fighting chance for the World Cup in China later this year.

At 5-5, Gilas is currently in fourth place in Group F, trailing Australia, Iran, and Japan. Only the top three squads in the two groups will automatically qualify for the World Cup while one more spot is reserved for the best-performing fourth-placer.

Excluding hosts China, Jordan is in fourth place in Group E with an identical 5-5 win-loss slate, behind New Zealand, Korea, and Lebanon. Jordan has a relatively tougher last two games against China and New Zealand. Japan, meanwhile, are scheduled to play Iran and Qatar.

A sweep of this window will boost Gilas’ World Cup bid, but everything will still depend on Japan, China, Lebanon, and Jordan’s respective performances.

Though having limited preparation time, head coach Yeng Guiao believes his 14-man roster has what it takes to lift the country in the crucial sixth window.

“Everybody is serious about the preparation. Everybody is trying to make a contribution. Ang tingin ko, lahat naman sila ready na at this point,” Guiao said.

Gilas played their only tune-up game against PBA’s Meralco Bolts last Friday, before flying for Doha, Qatar last Saturday.

“The guys are blending well. We are hoping we can still improve our defense and be able to translate or apply things we have practice in the window–the games against Qatar and Kazakhstan.”

Guiao hopes being in Qatar a week ahead will make up for the short amount of time, as they look to practice twice daily until game time against the hosts.

“We anticipate they will be playing in their home court and they will be more familiar with their surroundings. But the positive for us is we know maraming Filipinos sa Qatar so we are hoping that they will cheer for us and back us up,” Guiao said.

Qatar is already out of the running for the World Cup, but could play a spoiler role.

Gilas will have naturalized center Andray Blatche, June Mar Fajardo, Jayson Castro, Gabe Norwood, Japeth Aguilar, Scottie Thompson, Roger Pogoy, Marcio Lassiter, Poy Erram, Troy Rosario, Raymond Almazan, Mark Barroca, Paul Lee, and Thirdy Ravena for their last two matches.

After playing Qatar on February 22, Gilas will fly to Kazakhstan to face the North-Central Asian squad on February 24 with hopes of avenging a home loss in the fifth window.

It will be even tougher given the freezing weather in Astana, where it is below zero degrees celsius during this time of the year.

But Guiao mentioned he has focused on playing differently against Kazakhstan for Gilas to have a better chance of winning this time around.

“Our first concern is the weather. We don’t have enough time to acclimatize. Only two days. We practice the same day we arrive. Laro lang talaga ang itatagal namin doon. We have really made adjustments on defense based on how Kazakhstan played when they were here,” he said.

“Naka-design na yung defense natin for that. So hopefully we can put them off balance and get them out of rhythm. If we learned our lesson, we should be able to prevent them from doing it again.”

By Levi Verora, Jr.