By REYNALD MAGALLON
Gilas Pilipinas is hoping to make the most of the limited time it has to prepare for its pair of road games against New Zealand and Australia in the third window of the 2027 FIBA World Cup Asian qualifiers.
Haven’t fully taken a breather after steering Barangay Ginebra through a grueling seven-game series to claim the PBA Season 50 Commissioner’s Cup title, Gilas head coach Tim Cone immediately went down to work and laid out the plans for the national team in its one and half week buildup for the Asian qualifiers.
The Nationals already began practice on Wednesday, June 17 with Cone’s deputies LA Tenorio, Sean Chambers and Jong Uichico facilitating the training attended Dwight Ramos, Carl Tamayo, Kevin Quiambao, AJ Edu, Mike Phillips and Justine Baltazar.
Cone, meanwhile, attended the practice on Thursday and will lead the daily training until the team departs for Brisbane and Perth on the 23rd to ramp up preparations.
Gilas players who played for Ginebra during the Finals are given a five-day rest.
“We are off to an everyday practice from here on out until we leave by the 23rd,” said Cone.
The veteran mentor revealed that the team is scheduled to form a four-day camp in Brisbane to get the players acclimated before flying to Auckland where it plays a couple of friendly games.
The game against the Tall Blacks is on July 3 while the match against the Boomers is set on July 6.
“Our real training will come when we get down when we go to Brisbane and Perth. We wanted to leave early because of the weather in Australia, medyo malamig. It’s like 12-13 degrees in Auckland. We want to get there earlier so we can adjust,” said Cone.
“We are going to Brisbane first, it’s a little bit warmer in Australia and we’ll go with a four-day camp there and then we got friendlies that we’ll play in New Zealand and from there we’ll play our first game against New Zealand,” he added.
