MANILA, Philippines — While netizens and basketball fanatics voiced their disappointment over the Philippine men’s basketball squad’s worst-ever ninth place finish in the 20th Asian Games, Gilas Pilipinas coach Tim Cone reiterated they entered the game against China last Monday with the intention to win.
Heading into the last day of the group stage, the underdog Gilas needed to beat China or at least, avoid losing by 37 points or more to advance to the quarterfinal round.
But the highly-motivated Chinese side went to work from the get-go, utilizing their immense size advantage and their shooting to speed off to a massive 66-30 halftime lead.
China padded the lead to as high as 45 points and went on to clobber Gilas, 105-61, ending the country’s bid for back-to-back Asian Games men’s basketball championship in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan “We were very aware of that, but really our intention was to come out and play our best and try to win rather than just play for the quotient,” said Cone in his post-game talk with the press posted by One Sports.
But the American mentor admitted that China’s sheer size, skills and might were just too difficult to overcome, especially with Gilas playing with a shorter roster.
“We came to this tournament without a lot of size or height and we knew we were going to be smaller and we knew we had to play a certain way to be successful,” shared Cone, who was instrumental in ending the country’s 61-year Asian Games title drought after guiding the Philippines to the men’s basketball crown in the 2023 edition in Hangzhou, China.
“But against a high quality team like China and their size, it just wasn't enough for us,” he added.
With at least four players standing at 6-11 or above, the Chinese simply overwhelmed the Filipinos, as evidenced by China’s 55-36 rebounding advantage.
Gilas didn’t have the luxury of bringing its best players led by big Kai Sotto, AJ Edu, June Mar Fajardo, along with Mike Phillips, or experienced gunners Dwight Ramos, Kevin Quiambao and Carl Tamayo.
Sotto and Co. were instrumental in Gilas’ two-game sweep of its home games in the fourth round of the FIBA World Cup 2027 Asian Qualifiers in Manila more than two weeks ago following victories over Jordan and Iran.
But all of them were not allowed to play in a non-FIBA tournament like the Asian Games. Worse, Gilas also didn’t have naturalized player Justin Brownlee, who is still recovering from multiple injuries on his knee, leg and hamstring.
Cone thus had to stick with a Gilas side composed of PBA players for the Asian Games.
