GILAS Pilipinas coach Tim Cone admitted the team’s pocket tournament in Doha had an effect in their performance in Window 3 of the FIBA Asia Cup 2025 qualifiers where they lost two away games against Chinese Taipei on Thursday then New Zealand on Sunday.
READ: Cone lauds Tall Blacks: 'New Zealand smashed us early'
But Cone maintained that the trip to the Middle East - where they played three additional games aside from the qualifiers - was intended to be part of the bigger picture, as they build up early for the actual FIBA Asia Cup 2025 competition set in August in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
“These windows are so short, we’re together so little,” said Cone. “We were able to do a Doha trip before we came here just to try to get more time together and play more games. And it probably hurt us more than it helped us in terms of being ready for Taiwan and New Zealand.”
Before the matches against Chinese Taipei and New Zealand, Gilas competed in the 2nd Doha International Cup where they finished with a 1-2 win-loss record, winning against host Qatar and losing to Lebanon and Egypt.
The whirlwind trip may have cost the Filipinos, however, as they lost to Chinese Taipei, 91-84, and New Zealand, 87-70, to fall to 4-2 at the close of the FIBA Asia Cup qualifiers.
Rest was for the best?
With talk that fatigue may have come into play in the pair of away matches, Cone said the five games were vital to preparation for the regional tournament proper since they will have limited time to prepare in the weeks before the Jeddah joust.
“We were trying to look at a bigger picture in terms of the FIBA Asia coming up because we know we’re not going to have much time to prepare for that tournament,” said Cone, whose team lost four games in a row - if we include the Doha pocket tournament.
“So everything we do, it’s cumulative. It’s cumulative experiences. We are trying to take each window as an experience and move it onto the next one and onto the next one, and hopefully grow it and improve.”
Cone said Gilas will now go back to the drawing board, especially after seeing the effect of the absence of Kai Sotto - will miss the Nationals’ campaign in the FIBA Asia Cup due to an ACL tear - for the first time in this window.
Cone is also bracing for a difficult campaign in the FIBA Asia Cup after conceding the top seed in Group B to New Zealand, giving them a tougher draw.
“We lost a really, obviously, a key, key player for a year in terms of Kai Sotto. So we’re still trying to adjust how to play without him. That’s the things we’re gonna be talking about and thinking about as we go into the FIBA Asia Cup,” said Cone.
“This was important for seeding, so we really wanted to get that seeding. But that’s now going to go to New Zealand. We’re going to have a tougher road through that Cup. That’s something that’s uppermost in our minds as well,” he added.
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