GILAS Pilipinas is slated to play tune-up games against Finland and Estonia during their training camp in Europe for their build-up for the 2023 Fiba Basketball World Cup.
This was revealed by head coach Chot Reyes during the Power and Play program of Noli Eala on Saturday.
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“We are going to play a pocket tournament in Estonia to play against the Estonian national team and then Finland as well. It’s a very good tune-up for us,” said Reyes.
Finland is set to play in the Fiba Basketball World Cup in Group E in Okinawa with NBA player Lauri Markkanen possibly playing.
Reyes said the team will also be training in Lithuania and Latvia where they are arranging tune-up matches as well.
Gilas won’t be playing the Lithuania national team as they will be unavailable during their trip, but is nevertheless arranging tune-ups against top club teams there.
A pocket tournament in China is also in the works sometime in August where Gilas could also be participating, according to Reyes.
The Estonia pocket tournament will be the first competition in Gilas Pilipinas’ build-up for the World Cup.
“From there, we will be going to Lithuania, hopefully get a stop-over in Latvia to play Latvia. Unfortunately, the Lithuanian national team will not be available while we are there. But we are trying to get a game with their Under-21 team which we already played when we were there in 2014. It’s a very strong team. And some of their top-ranked club teams as well which are very strong teams as well. That’s our schedule from June to July,” said Reyes.
Gilas will then return to the country following the European training camp.
“Balik tayo to train and then we will have a tournament is shaping up in August in China. We have an invitation but hindi pa final ‘yun. We will make an announcement when all of those become finalized,” said Reyes.
Reyes said the build-up for the Basketball World Cup will start on June 7.
“We initially announced a June 1 resumption but there are certain players who are still tired and nursing slight injuries, may sakit. So we moved back the resumption to June 7 to give players more time to rest and prepare their bodies,” Reyes said.
“The first order of business is to resume on June 7,” said Reyes.
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