HEAD Coach Yeng Guiao admits Team Philippines remains a work in progress and must polish its movement inside the court—but he has barely four days to do that.
“We’re still trying to get the cohesion, proper spacing and moving the ball around,” said Guiao on Monday, four days before Team Philippines tackles Kazakhstan in the penultimate window of the Fiba World Cup Qualifiers on Friday at the Mall of Asia Arena.
Team Philippines lost three of its four tune-up matches with Jordan and Lebanon. The Filipinos split their duel with the Jordan players, but the second one went ugly and their opponents walked out after Guiao engaged his counterpart to an altercation.
The Filipinos absorbed back-to-back losses to Lebanon—68-74 on Friday and 60-71 on on Sunday night at the Meralco Gym.
Guiao gave his players a piece of his mind after the game, stressing on “a lack of effort”—although that did not deter him from believing the nationals will deliver when it matters most.
“I’m disappointed with their competitive nature because I felt they could have exerted more effort,” said Guiao after the match witnessed by a big crowd that included the team’s head of delegation Christopher “Bong” Go.
“But we’re positive we can play a good game against Kazakhstan on Friday,” he stressed.
After Kazakhstan, the Filipinos take on Iran on December 3 also at the Mall of Asia Arena.
The tune-up games, Guiao said, bared more of the team’s weaknesses.
“We have a lot of work to do, which we hope to make it matter in the games that are more important to us, which is the Kazakhs and Iran games,” he said.
Instead of trimming the current pool to 15 players, Guiao and his staff will just announce right away the composition of the final roster against the Kazakhs.
“We already have an idea of the final 12. The scrimmages and tune-up games were big factors in choosing the players,” he said.
Guiao noted that playing on a big stage requires focus on a higher level than what the players are used to in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA).
“We must be able to execute under pressure, and it’s a lot more than what they do in PBA,” he said.