CONE GLAD GILAS DID ITS HOMEWORK ON DEFENSE SCOUTING LATVIA

GILAS Pilipinas coach Tim Cone admitted the 89-80 win over host Latvia on Thursday in the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament left him in a state of stock.

"I’m totally shocked to be sitting here in front of you guys after winning this basketball game," said Cone during the postgame press conference after Gilas brought down the world's No. 6-ranked team in front of its home fans.

The historic victory - the first by the Philippines against a European side since beating Spain in the 1960 Rome Olympics - also put Gilas in contention of reaching the semifinals from the group, which also has world No. 23 Georgia.

READ History unfolds in Latvia as Gilas stuns world No. 6 in OQT

Cone admitted they came into the game against Latvia with the goal of making it a competitive contest. But their confidence grew as Gilas piled on the points at a consistent pace, and Latvia could not.

The Philippines went on to lead by as many as 26 points, a cushion that proved to be enough in the face of a late comeback by Latvia.

Cone said it was also unfortunate that Latvia missed its top point guard Arturs Zagars.

"This is not something we thought we are gonna do, I’ll be honest with you," said Cone. "We wanted to come in and compete and really put on a good show. We got started early. We made shots early.

"Then, thankfully, Latvia missed shots and also Zagars didn’t play. That was huge for us. He is that guy who goes out there and controls tempo for them."

PHOTO: fiba.basketball

"We got momentum and we just never really lost it. There were a couple of stretches where we kinda lost our way a little bit. But it just seemed like when Latvia was about ready to make a huge run at us, they would miss an open three-point shot. It was just one of those nights for Latvia. They weren’t hitting shots tonight," said Cone.

Gilas shot 48 percent from the field (30-of-62), but Latvia only hit 38 percent of its shots (27-of-72).

The concurrent Ginebra coach said it was the team’s defense that pulled them through, adding that he and his staff went through several game tapes of Latvia from last year’s FIBA Basketball World Cup where they finished fifth.

Defense is name of the game

"Got to credit our guys and their defense. We were doing our best trying to defend everybody," Cone said.

"We were very, very conscious of him," said Cone, referring to Latvia’s NBA player Davis Bertans, who had 10 points but went just 2-of-7 from threes. "We played him with a smaller guy who can be quicker."

"You look at our line-up, our big guy had to go out and guard Kurucs. We put our big guy on Kurucs and kept a smaller guy on Bertans. And we were prepared to chase him and stay with him, prepared for him to slip screens, go-screens. That’s the game plan. But the guy still makes some incredible shots," said Cone.

PHOTO: fiba.basketball

"We try to slide into him and then hope and pray that he would miss. And tonight, he missed, went in our favor," Cone said.

"Watching him in Georgia, and then we were going through all the video, we were preparing for him. We are going through all the video against Germany and all the teams in the World Cup and everything. The shots he makes are just phenomenal. You just have to hold your breath and hope he misses," said Cone.

While he is surprised with the result, Cone also said they also had a mindset of winning as many games possible.

"But still, I’ll be honest. I really am shocked to be here. We didn’t come here to win one game. Hopefully, we can move on and get to the next round and have a chance to maybe play Latvia again in the finals," said Cone.

2024-07-03T20:08:33Z dg43tfdfdgfd