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After two tuneup matches, Gilas Pilipinas coach Chot Reyes expects training to ramp up as the team conducts two-a-day practice in Lithuania.
Reyes said the losses to national teams of Estonia and Finland gave them a good handle of what Gilas needs to work on as they continue their build up for the 2023 FIBA World Cup.
“Right now we're just continuing little by little to get to our conditioning level,” Reyes told One Sports' Carlo Pamintuan in an interview posted at the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas' Facebook page.
“No. 2 all we're doing now are all the fundamentals, technique, mechanics, to make sure we understand our terminologies from here so we can run some schemnes and run some looks,” he added.
The Gilas mentor added they are looking at playing four tuneup games in Lithuania as they grow further in team chemistry.
“That's (team chemistry) not gonna happen overnight, that's why we start this early,” explained Reyes. “When we get to Lithuania, we go two-a-days (practice). Those are our goals that we're trying to achieve (as we play) at least four more (games) in Lithuania, four games in like 10 days, so those are going to be good tests for us.”
Gilas dropped an 81-71 decision to Estonia, followed by a narrow 89-85 result to Finland early this week.
Reyes admitted the slow start and learning to play the FIBA pace are still part of the aspects the team is trying to work on.
The good news is, veteran Gilas big men June Mar Fajardo and Japeth Aguilar are now back in action since going down with separate injuries several months back in the PBA.
Gilas is eyeing to improve on its one-win output in the 2014 FIBA World Cup in Seville, Spain. The Philippines also went winless in the 2019 edition in China.
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