Gilas Pilipinas ahead of its match up against 2025 Fiba Asia Cup qualifiers. –FIBA PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—Gilas Pilipinas’ packed schedule before the 2025 Fiba Asia Cup qualifiers’ third window may have done more harm than good for Tim Cone’s squad, as far as the road stretch was concerned.
And he admitted as much after the Filipinos dropped two away games against Chinese Taipei and New Zealand and lost their grip on the top spot of Group B.
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LIVE: Gilas Pilipinas vs New Zealand at 2025 Fiba Asia Cup qualifiers
“We were able to do a Doha trip before we came here just to try and get more time together and play more games but it probably hurt us more than it helped us in terms of being ready for Taiwan and New Zealand,” admitted Cone after their 87-70 loss at the hands of the Tall Blacks at Spark Arena in Auckland on Sunday.
“We were trying to look at the bigger picture in terms of FIBA Asia coming up because we know we won’t have much time.”
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The Doha International Cup campaign was geared towards preparing the national team for the continental meet set for August, and not for the third window games which were essentially non-bearing.
But in Doha, Gilas Pilipinas also struggled in a series of friendlies, absorbing two straight losses at the hands of Iran and Egypt after an opening day win over Qatar.
READ: Tim Cone laments Gilas’ poor first quarter in loss to New Zealand
Gilas’ poor performance carried over to the qualifiers, as the Nationals absorbed a stunning upset loss at the hands of Chinese Taipei before being routed by New Zealand–two teams they have beaten in the past.
Whether Gilas would do the same preparations on the road to the Asia Cup—joining more tournaments before the Saudi Arabia games—is still up in the air.
The Gilas coaching staff will have a lot of thinking to do before the big continental clash in August, especially with the squad only having a few days to collect themselves and train.
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“[We’ll have] maybe 8-10 days at most to come together and prepare for that tournament so everything we do is cumulative,” said Cone, who is set to return to his PBA duties with Ginebra in a few days.
“We’re trying to take each window as experience and move on to the next one and hopefully get in and improve.”
