When was the last time you heard a European team saying that they weren’t big enough to match up against Gilas?
It’s a safe bet that prior to the recent FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament (OQT) held in Riga, Latvia, no European basketball team has ever worried about the size of a Philippine basketball team. It’s likely that no European coach had been quoted as saying that his team had trouble with the height of Filipino players.
That all changed after the OQT, where Gilas Pilipinas pulled off the shocker of the tournament with an 89-80 upset of the hosts in front of a boisterous home crowd. It was the first win by a Philippine team over a European team in an official FIBA tournament in 64 years. Gilas went up 32-16 after the first quarter and never looked back, eventually advancing to the semifinals where they lost to Brazil.
Nearly two weeks after that historic win, Gilas coach Tim Cone gave his honest assessment on what happened against Latvia.
“I thought that our size really gave them problems,” he said Monday. “I was talking to Sean Chambers, and we were reading an article by the Latvian coach, and the headline was, ‘The size of the Philippine team gave us problems.’ How many times have you heard that through the generations? We were too big for them!”
Specifically, Latvia had problems with 6’10” June Mar Fajardo and 7’3” Kai Sotto, who combined for 29 points and 13 rebounds on a collective shooting effort of 12-for-16. Overall, Gilas outrebounded Latvia, 43-34.
“Kai was phenomenal in that game on both sides of the floor,” Cone noted. “June Mar was just overwhelming for them in terms of size and being able to get his spot. Latvia was not necessarily representative of all the big European teams. They were really like 6’10”, 6’9″, in the front line. But their bigs were very, very versatile. (Roland) Smits was, we felt, was their best player.
“June Mar did a tremendous job extending out to them, staying in front of them. And so those are the things that I think gave them problems.
“It was really the play of June Mar and Kai. That was the difference. Of course, Justin (Brownlee) and Dwight (Ramos) were the motor that drove us. But without Kai and Jumar there, it wouldn’t have mattered how well Justin and Dwight played. It was the presence of the two big guys was really a difference maker.”
Fajardo and Sotto are vastly different in terms of their big man skills, and for Cone a big “what if” was if another big man of a different mold could have joined the team as well.
“And I can’t help but think, imagine if A.J. Edu had been there as well and what a difference he would have made in terms of keeping our big men fresh and giving them a different look because he’s a different type of big man than the other two.
“That’s what’s nice about Kai and June Mar is that they’re very different. They’re not made in the same mold. June Mar’s got terrific inside presence, can get to his position, a tremendous rebounder. Kai can switch to different positions. And you’ve got to give Kai a lot of credit because for Kai to play with June Mar, he had to stay out on the perimeter and play almost like a wing.
“So he was like a 7’3” wingman for us when he was playing with June Mar. And that was a big adjustment for him, and he did it flawlessly. And that was, you asked me again, what were the things that we needed to do. One of the things we wanted to prove is could we get Jumar and Kai to play together and be effective in the European level. And they proved that they could be.”
Inside, and outside as well
But it wasn’t just in the post where Gilas surprised its opponents. Another aspect of the game where they exceeded previous performances against taller European teams was in three-point shooting.
Gilas shot a phenomenal 47% from beyond the arc, going 30-for-61, the best percentage among all six teams in the Latvia OQT.
“Everybody kind of said it before we left, that we didn’t have a very good shooting team. And that maybe we needed to add more shooters to the team. On the contrary, we actually were the number one shooting, three-point shooting team in the tournament.
“Guys like Dwight, I think, Dwight Ramos is a really underrated shooter. Of course, Justin is an awesome shooter. Chris Newsome has really improved his shooting ability from the three.
“Carl’s (Tamayo) a good three-point shooter. Kevin’s (Quiambao) a good three-point shooter. We’re a pretty good shooting team. And we had a really good shooting night that night.”
Of course, Cone’s pet offense also had a lot to do with the historic win.
“I just think that because of their unfamiliarity with the triangle, they just didn’t really see that before. And we got a lot of actions that worked in the triangle that we don’t normally get in the PBA because everybody’s so used to running and playing against the PBA, against our team in the triangle. But they were a little bit surprised by some of the way we played. But I think, by and large, it was really our size.”
Banner Image from PBA Media Bureau.
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