Gilas has won two out of four tune-up games in Europe so far.
After getting back-to-back wins against Ukraine’s under-20 team in Kaunas, Lithuania over the weekend, Gilas Pilipinas continues to build momentum with over seven weeks left until the FIBA World Cup.
The deficiencies in turnovers and rebounding are starting to get minimized, and players like Rhenz Abando are beginning to emerge as one of the most promising members of the current Gilas pool. Still, the focus of the longtime national team mentor remains on the conditioning of his pupils.
“When we started, these guys were coming off injuries. They were nowhere near competitive shape,” Reyes divulged to Carlo Pamintuan of One Sports.
“That’s the most fundamental of all fundamentals, stamina, conditioning. Everything that we’re doing here, all the extra work, the loading, the lifting, conditioning stuff that we’re doing [are] precisely to get them to that level,” the veteran tactician elaborated.
At this point of the camp, Coach Chot admits that his charges are still far from getting in optimal game shape. He, however, believes that Gilas is on the right track in order to peak at the right time.
“We’re still a long ways off. We are not programmed to be at the top level at this point. This is still part of the learning process, getting our feet under us,” Reyes explained.
So far, so good. That seems to be sentiment of the Gilas headmaster talking about the first four tune-up games they’ve played in the Baltic region. According to Reyes, the friendly matches against, Estonia, Finland and Ukraine have served their purpose well.
“Overall, I think the four games we’ve played have delivered what we expected. For us to learn a lot about each other, get us into competitive shape while playing against quality competition.”
Gilas is set to stay in Europe to play more tune-ups, particularly against teams from Lithuania and Latvia.
(GM)