Gilas Pilipinas head coach Chot Reyes quickly moved on from their morale-boosting tune-up with Ivory Coast as he turned his focus on a more challenging task at hand on Sunday.
Montenegro, that is.
“That’s a very different team, mas malakas yan, European style, [Nikola] Vucevic is there, a bonafide NBA starter for his team, and some others,” he said moments after their 85-62 win Friday at the PhilSports Arena in Pasig.
“Diyan, mapapalaban talaga tayo. But we’ll see. We’re looking to play better in the Montenegro game than we did today,” added the veteran mentor.
Set at 8 p.m. in the same venue, the Philippine team will go up against the world no. 20, led by NBA big man Nikola Vucevic.
Joining the Chicago Bull are Bojan Dubljevic and shooters Vladimir Mihailovic and Dino Radoncic.
The Black Mountains also confronted formidable opponents in their preparations for the global showcase.
Their participation in the France Summer Tour resulted in losses to France (80-69) and Slovenia (104-100).
They also took part in the City Hall Cup in Georgia, where they triumphed over Iran (81-66) but stumbled against Georgia (79-84).
However, Gilas enters the contest on a high note after successfully passing their initial test against another World Cup-bound team.
“There were still some kinks offensively, the turnovers, kasi first time naglaro sila ng kumpleto di ba?” said Reyes.
“We have to keep working on that. But I was very pleased with the defense, especially sa second half. Trinabaho talaga namin yon sa Europe and sa China.”
It is also anticipated that Reyes will field Bobby Ray Parks Jr., Calvin Oftana, and/or Thirdy Ravena in Gilas’ second-to-last tune-up match.
