Guiao: Team Phl to put up proud stand in Asiad
“When you play Game Seven, it’s 50-50. But if you battle these guys in a closeout, it’s so difficult because the other team has so much sting,” Cone added. “You are thinking ‘yeah we can win the championship; we’ve got a couple of games.’ You try to put that out of your mind. But it’s human nature.”
While the Kings try not to relax, the Beermen, on the other hand, would surely go all out in a bid to stay alive.
“The other team, they know it’s do or die so they will bring it all,” said Cone.
And that’s really San Miguel’s mindset going to the game.
“We don’t need to wait another conference to get to the finals. We’re still here, needing to win two games to defend our title, and I think we’re capable of doing it,” said San Miguel coach Leo Austria.
Austria was convinced “50-50 calls” late in Game Five went to Ginebra, but he said they have to move on and be ready to play their best in Game Six.
“The breaks didn’t go our way. The last possession went to the other side. But it’s beyond our control. There was a lot of banging inside and fouls were not called. But it’s basketball. We have to accept it, move forward and stay positive,” said Austria.
He said they have to will to win Game Six so as not to blow away all the efforts they made the last three months.
“It’s just two games. We’ve struggled from the start of the elims, made the playoffs and we’re able to beat TNT KaTropa and Alaska Milk. The chance is still there, and we have to go for it,” he said.
“They beat us in Game One but we beat them in Games Two and Three. They beat us two in a row, but maybe it’s our turn to have another back-to-back wins,” he added.
Even with just an eight-day preparation for an event as tough as the Asian Games, coach Yeng Guiao vowed Team Phl would go all out and do its best to make the country proud when the men’s basketball competition in the 18th edition of the quadrennial games is fired off on Aug. 14 in Jakarta, Indonesia.
The Jakarta Asiad officially opens on Aug. 18 but the basketball event starts four days earlier with the Philippines’ first game against United Arab Emirates in Group B on Aug. 16. The gold-medal game will be played Sept. 1 at the Istora Gelora Bung Karno Basketball Hall.
Guiao and his troops leave the country on Aug. 14. After UAE, Team Phl will take on Iran on Aug. 19 then Syria on Aug. 25.
The Nationals need to be in the Top Two in the group to advance to the knockout round (Final Eight) of the 14-team tournament led by traditional powers China and South Korea.
Understanding Team Phl’s predicament with its late reentry in the meet, Philippine Olympic Committee president Ricky Vargas set a modest goal of just surpassing the country’s seventh-place finish the last time in Incheon, Korea.
But Guiao said they would compete as hard as they can and would make no excuses.
Time constraint prompted Guiao to pick mostly his former players for the 14man pool to the Jakarta meet.
Rain or Shine’s Maverick Ahanmisi, Chris Tiu, Gabe Norwood, James Yap, Beau Belga and Raymond Almazan, TNT’s Don Trollano, Magnolia’s Paul Lee and NLEX’s Asi Taulava lead the roster.
All these players have played under Guiao at one time or another. Norwood, Yap and Taulava were with Guiao’s team in the 2009 FIBA Asia Championship in Tianjin, China.
Completing Guiao’s current pool are GlobalPort’s Stanley Pringle, Blackwater’s Poy Erram, San Miguel’s Christian Standhardinger and Gilas cadets Kobe Paras and Ricci Rivero.
“Time is really short even before when we planned this. With what happened in the last two weeks, lalong umigsi. That’s one reason we got the core of the Rain or Shine team – they’re familiar with me, and I’m familiar with them,” said Guiao.
“Our constraint is the preparation time, but we will work overtime. Cramming ito, pero magaling naman tayo mag-cram,” Guiao also said.
The Philippines was the dominant team in the early editions of this quadrennial meet before the rise of China. Team Phl has not won a medal since the bronze of the Centennial team in 1998 in Bangkok.
Team Phl (No. 7) is among the seeded teams in the 18th Asian Games along with No. 1 South Korea, No. 2 Iran, No. 3 Japan, No. 4 Kazakhstan, No. 5 China, No. 6 Qatar and No. 8 Mongolia, with the seedings based on the teams’ finishes in the last Asiad. The unseeded teams are Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Syria, Thailand and UAE.
South Korea has an easy grouping with Mongolia, Indonesia and Thailand. Japan, Qatar, Chinese Taipei and Hong Kong are together in Group C while China, Kazakhstan are two teams left in Group D on the withdrawal of Palestine.