WITH the uncertainty of 7-foot-3 Kai Sotto playing for the Philippine team, national coach Tim Cone said Gilas Pilipinas will have to work with the front court players available in the current pool.
That’s basically what the American coach did during the just-ended Window 2 of the FIBA World Cup 2027 Asian Qualifiers where the Philippines dropped a narrow 66-69 loss to New Zealand and a 93-66 setback against Australia.
“We’re hoping Kai will get back to us at some point, maybe this upcoming window or even beyond. He’s another factor, without a doubt, and we’d love to have him,” Cone said at the close of the second window last Sunday.
“But as long as he’s not here, we can’t cry about it. We just have to keep moving forward and playing for it,” he added.
Against the Tall Blacks and the Boomers, Cone had at his disposal Filipino American Quentin Millora-Brown, June Mar Fajardo and AJ Edu, all standing at 6 feet and 10 inches.
Waiting from the pool is new addition 6-foot-9 Justine Baltazar and 6-foot-7 Troy Rosario.
Cone, however, knows that the Philippines’ FIBA World Cup bid for 2028 in Doha, Qatar hinges on how well they can learn the lessons from Window 2 and get better moving forward.
“We probably should have run more, but they (Boomers) did a good job of disrupting us. I think that’s the next step for us, being able to execute better,” said Cone.
“We didn’t execute as much as we wanted to, and that’s why we didn’t get much of a flow,” he added.
The Gilas Pilipinas mentor also said that it’s imperative for the Philippines to get better and better defensively.
Defensively, while he saw more positives than negatives, Cone still wants the team to show better effort and consistency against opponents of such caliber.
“We base our team on being a great defensive team. We want our guys to come out and really lock in on defense,” said Cone, whose Gilas Pilipinas squad held New Zealand to 66 points and managed to hold Australia to just 38 in the first half.
But once the Boomers get their rhythm, the Filipinos just could not sustain their defensive effort.
“We’re not going to shoot our way into 55 points against great teams like Australia or New Zealand. We’ve got to hold them down so that we can have a chance to win. We’re not going to get into shootouts with these guys. We’re not going to win doing shootouts,” Cone explained.
The Philippines will face New Zealand and Australia anew in a pair of away games this July for the third and final window of the first round.