Gilas Pilipinas starts work on the defensive end
CAGAYAN DE ORO – Gilas Pilipinas started working on its defensive schemes on the eve of its first- ever tune- up game since the program resumed in preparation for the Southeast Asian Basketball (SEABA) Men’s Championship.
On Tuesday night, the 11-man Gilas pool set to play in the Mindanao leg of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) All- Stars last night went to work, focusing more on making stops. And for Gilas Pilipinas coach Jong Uichico, who broke down some defensive drills during the practices, it was a good time for them to start running their defensive concepts.
“We concentrated the past few practices on our offense,” Mr. Uichico, who presided the team’s practices in lieu of head coach Chot Reyes told BusinessWorld in an exclusive interview. “These coming days approaching the tournament, we should spend a little bit more time on the defensive end.”
Mr. Uichico called the shots during the 6 p.m. workout Tuesday night as Mr. Reyes had to board a night flight from Manila to first attend to some important matters in the TV5 office where he is also the president and CEO.
Now in charge of running the team’s defensive schemes, Mr. Uichico set out drills for the players on how to defend ball screens.
“We know all these players from Gilas can score, but the question is can we defend consistently?” he added.
Mr. Uichico said he understood the initial struggles the players were having as they came from different teams running different systems.
“It’s something new for them, not necessarily entirely new. They have different teams and they have different executions, so we just tried some general defensive schemes, whose principles they were able to pick up. We thought that teams in the international competitions are ball pick- oriented. Rather than post-oriented. We concentrated on defending the ball pick today,” added Mr. Uichico.
Gilas Pilipinas is set to play three games against the PBA All- Stars, who were divided to three teams playing Mindanao ( Cagayan de Oro) last night, Luzon (Lucena City) tomorrow, and Visayas ( Cebu) on Sunday, before heading to the SEABA Men’s Championship slated May 12-18 at the Smart Araneta Coliseum. —