MISSION POSSIBLE

Gilas Pilipinas head coach Tim Cone isn’t worried about having an 11-man roster for the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament next month in Riga, Latvia.

In fact, the tactician stood by his decision to maintain a lean pool that eventually went down a man short of what was expected to be fielded in the qualifier for the Paris Olympics set from 3 to 7 July.

“I don’t feel we’re shorthanded at all,” Cone said following Gilas’ 74-64 win over the Taiwan Mustangs Monday night at the Philsports Arena in Pasig City.

Gilas have missed the services of starting guard Scottie Thompson due to back issues in the team’s send-off tune-up match and will continue to do so as they fly to Europe for their final buildup.

The Filipino cagers left Manila Tuesday for friendly matches against Turkey and Poland before traveling to the Latvian capital of Riga.

They will face the Turkish on Thursday before clashing with the Polish on Sunday.

Injury woes hit Gilas, who are looking to return to the Summer Games since the 1972 Munich edition, after Jamie Malonzo went down with a calf injury and big man AJ Edu unavailable due to knee trouble.

Cone tapped veteran Japeth Aguilar and young gun Mason Amos as replacements.

There were also attempts to fill the spot of Thompson but RR Pogoy, who joined Gilas in a four-day training camp at the Inspire Academy in Laguna, failed to make it to the roster because of visa issues.

“It’s not that we can’t find a replacement for him, it’s just that we’re missing him. Nobody, anybody we’d get is not gonna replace Scottie. That’s just a fact of life,” Cone said.

“But we don’t feel short-handed. We talked to the 11 guys. They’re 11 strong.”

Bumping off the health setbacks, Cone maintained that Gilas will remain competitive despite facing an uphill battle for the Olympic ticket against European powerhouse teams Latvia and Georgia in the group stage — even with just 11 available players.

“I’m not a guy who plays 11 or 12 guys anyway. You know me, I don’t play that many guys. I’m really an eight or nine-man rotation,” Cone, who steered Gilas to ending a 61-year gold medal drought in the Hangzhou Asian Games last year.

‘It’s not that we can’t find a replacement for him, it’s just that we’re missing him.’

The Pinoy cagers face world No. 6 Latvia on 3 July before crossing paths with No. 23 Georgia the following day.

The top two teams after the preliminary round will advance into the knock semifinals against the top two in Group B composed of Brazil, Cameroon and Montenegro.

Cone is confident that he has enough pieces to fill the gap left by Thompson.

He sees Dwight Ramos fit for the job.

“We are looking at Dwight to help us out in the backcourt. He played the wing for us when we had Scottie but we moved him to the backcourt. He gives us great size and he is still capable of scoring from that position,” Cone said.

So do Chris Newsome and even CJ Perez.

“So we feel that Dwight is capable. New (Chris Newsome) is obviously very capable and I’m really pleasantly surprised with CJ (Perez),” he added.

“CJ is handling and seeing our offense really, really well. I don’t feel we are losing anything.”

Already qualified in the Summer Games in the French capital slated from 26 July to 11 August are defending champion USA, Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Serbia, South Sudan and France.