Gilas Pilipinas cruised to a comfortable win over Hong Kong, China in the FIBA Asia Cup 2025 Qualifiers, even as the crowd demanded to see Dwight Ramos play.
As expected, Gilas Pilipinas steamrolled Hong Kong, China by 39 points in their FIBA Asia Cup 2025 Qualifiers match on Sunday night before a packed Mall of Asia Arena.
After an unsteady first half, Tim Cone’s boys settled down after the break, limiting the visitors to just 19 second-half points en route to a 93-54 victory that all but clinched their ticket to the tournament proper next year in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
“It was a struggle for us in the first half and they were getting open threes and shooting them,” Cone said, referring to Hong Kong’s seven made triples in the first half that kept the score close. “And that’s a concern we have obviously over this window because we’ve given up a lot of three-point shots. And we did that in the first half against New Zealand as well.
“But second half, I felt we came out and we got to the shooters a little better. We scrambled a little bit more. we should get out there because we’ve got protection behind us and June Mar (Fajardo) and Kai (Sotto). So really no excuse. So it’s a little bit bothersome that we’re allowing that many three-point shots.
“But I thought also offensively, we moved the ball a lot better in the second half. I think we had only nine assists in the first half and we had 15 in the second. So we moved the ball a lot better.”
It was indeed a showcase of good Gilas basketball in the second half, with the young players given an ample amount of playing time. Carl Tamayo, in particular, was impressive, as he led the scoring parade with 18 points in just 17 minutes. But ironically, it was a player who was on the bench for the entire game who drew the most attention.
‘We want Dwight!’
It’s pretty much a given that Dwight Ramos is the most popular player on the Gilas roster. He may very well be the most popular Filipino player, period, regardless of sport. If not, he’s certainly up there. This was certainly confirmed several times over during the Hong Kong game.
When Calvin Oftana took St. Dwight’s spot in the starting five, the crowd didn’t really notice or mind. But when Cone sent in four other players off the bench in the first half, and still no sign of Dwight, people started wondering.
And when Dwight Ramos was still stuck on the bench in the third quarter, the crowd had had enough. They started chanting “We want Dwight! We want Dwight!” and would do so a few more times until the final buzzer. They had no way of knowing that Ramos had a calf injury and was held out as a precaution.
Tim Cone found it all amusing.
“I remember there was a fan on the front row along the basket and I told him he was injured,” Cone narrated. “I can’t play him. And he still kept saying, ‘We want Dwight, we want Dwight.’
“Yeah, I mean, I love Dwight. I mean, I’m like all the girls, you know, I love Dwight. I just love him for different reasons, right? I mean, I love him for his basketball mind and his talent. He’s got an incredible basketball mind. The girls like him for his looks. I can’t like him for his looks. But I love him for his brain and basketball brain.”
The team thought about sending in Ramos even for just 30 seconds and have him stand in a corner just to appease the crowd, but then they thought better of it.
“So I, more than anybody, wanted to put him on the floor. I guarantee you that. I wasn’t holding him out for any other reason from the fact that he had pulled his calf muscle in the late stages of the New Zealand game. He practiced yesterday, tried to practice yesterday. He tried to do our shoot around today. We weren’t sure until he came to the game.
“We said, he’s going to try to warm up and see how it was. But he was still feeling pain. And, to be honest, I would have pushed him harder to play if we were playing New Zealand.
“But we felt that we could, you know, rest him and be careful with him in this game. I thought, and that’s best for him because he’s got to go back and play in Japan and keep his career going. And we didn’t want to blow that calf out.”
Dwight’s legions of fans can rest assured, though, that the muscle pull isn’t that serious and that their idol is expected to be back on the court in the B.League sooner rather than later.
Going on the road
Following these two home games, Gilas Pilipinas will close out their qualifiers with road games against New Zealand and Chinese Taipei in February. Cone is rightfully calling it the “toughest part” of their schedule, especially with New Zealand eying payback following their loss to Gilas last Thursday.
“It’s going to be a tough load for us. And we’re already looking forward to that challenge. You know, with the short preparation time and the big gaps between the windows, it’s hard to keep everybody updated on the system and how we do things. I was telling the guys that on the first practice that we had coming back, I kind of assumed that they would know everything because we just came from the OQT a few months ago.
“But they go back and they start playing a different system and they completely forgot. And I was like, ‘Oh man.’ I couldn’t believe our first practice. But by our second practice, the memory chips were starting to work a little bit. And by the third and fourth, we were coming together. So we have to really go back to basics and get back to our base first before we can build. And so it’s always like back to zero whenever we come together and try to build.
“But I felt this time by the fourth or third or fourth day, we were already starting to elevate our game and getting it previous high. So the whole point of these windows is to get better, use the experience that we had playing in this window and add that to the experience we had in the OQT. And hopefully that elevates our game going into the next window where now we’re going on the road.”
The program Cone set in place seeks to build on familiarity, which is why he is not inclined to add any new players to his 15-man pool.
“I am less likely to want to increase the pool,” he said. “I think the more you increase the pool, the more teaching you have to do. And you have to keep the, you know, if you can keep a core going all the time and really focus on that core, keep it a tight group, then that core is going to get better.
“If you start expanding the pool, you have to go back to zero and start teaching all over again everything that you’ve taught. So the pattern of the short windows prevents you from having those four to six week preparation times. Now it’s five days, four days.
“So if you bring 20 guys in, you have to teach 20 guys how to do things in four or five days. And it gets really hard. So it’s better if we can tighten up.”
Banner images from FIBA.