Game Thursday:
(King Abdullah Sports City)
11 p.m. — Gilas vs New Zealand
Gilas Pilipinas seeks a quick turnaround after an opening-day setback in a showdown against dangerous New Zealand tonight in the 33rd FIBA Asia Cup at the King Abdullah Sports City in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The Filipinos will try to get on the right track in their bid for the crown that eluded the Philippines for 40 years in a crucial battle with the Tall Blacks in Group D at 11 p.m. (Manila time).
Gilas was tentative in the opening period, which Chinese Taipei capitalized on to send the Nationals reeling to an 87-95 defeat early Wednesday at the start of the prestigious continental cage wars.
Ill-advised decisions and an atrocious 26 fouls committed doomed Gilas’ chances of a payback over the Taiwanese, who beat the team at their home soil last February in the third and final window of the tourney’s qualifiers.
Gilas is facing a New Zealand squad that is coming off a 100-78 drubbing of Iraq in its competition debut.
Asia Cup tournament format hands the top teams in each of the four groups an automatic pass to the quarterfinals while the second and third-ranked teams will battle it out in the knockout round for a spot in the Last Eight.
Although Gilas still has an outside chance of advancing outright, Cone and his wards are focused on getting back up first and see where fate and hard work will take them.
“This has made a big, you know, roadblock for us right here. But it’s just something we’re going to have to try to overcome,” Cone said of the loss.
“If we have to come through the loser’s bracket, then we’re going to try to do that.”
Gilas went down, 8-25, in the first quarter and never recovered the rest of the way against the Taiwanese, who banked on the 34-point explosion of Chen Ying-Chung.
“You know, obviously, they really outcoached us tonight and a disappointing performance on my part and really hurt by the loss. But we’ll see what we can do. We have to see if we can bounce back from this and move forward,” Cone said.
“That’s the only thing that we can do at this point.”
But Gilas will have to deal with an even more difficult obstacle as the Tall Blacks will be coming out brimming with confidence in their attempt to replicate their 17-point crushing of the Philippines in their second meeting during the qualifiers.
Taylor Britt and Mojave King torched the Iraqis with 21 and 18 points, respectively. They will pose as the main threats for Gilas along with Carlin Davison and Tohi Smith-Milner.
Eight-time Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Most Valuable Player June Mar Fajardo will need to bounce back mightily after barely contributing to the cause with two points and two rebounds in 19 minutes of play against the Taiwanese.
Naturalized player Justin Brownlee, who fouled out in the last four minutes of the game when Gilas was making a last-ditch rally, Kevin Quiambao, Scottie Thompson and AJ Edu did their part in the previous game but will need more help this time to save the team from going down to 0-2.
Gilas will face Iraq on Saturday afternoon (Manila time).