Strong Group-Pilipinas needs to make key adjustments after splitting its first two games in the 45th Jones Cup at the Xinzhuang Gymnasium in New Taipei City.

Head coach Charles Tiu said the team is slowly finding its rhythm after bouncing back with a 78-72 victory over Japan on Friday.

Strong Group entered its game against Chinese Taipei Blue with a 1-1 record in Group A, knowing that another strong performance would be crucial to its bid for a third straight Jones Cup title.

“We are slowly finding our groove, and we need these types of games, although I’m hoping we can have a more dominant performance. We also got an earful from Boss Jacob (Lao), and that gave us good motivation to compete harder,” Tiu said.

“We need to get back to playing our SGA brand of basketball and find our identity. It’s a long tournament, but we definitely need to step up to beat Taipei.”

Strong Group must finish among the top two teams in Group A to advance to the semifinals.

After facing the Taiwanese, the Philippine side still has games against Japan, Taiwan and Korean Basketball League club Wonju DB Promy as it fights for one of the two semifinal berths.

Tiu hopes the victory over Japan can serve as the spark Strong Group needs.

“Good bounce-back win. We just had to. There was no way we could play as badly as we did yesterday. We had our moments, but we still had a few bad stretches,” Tiu said.

With the tournament still in its early stages, Tiu stressed the need for Strong Group to rediscover the identity that powered its previous Jones Cup campaigns and eliminate the lapses that have marked its opening games.