The 30th Southeast Asian Games-bound Gilas Pilipinas will not hold practice this Monday evening, as team manager Gabby Cui confirmed to Tiebreaker Times via text message.
This comes after coach Tim Cone told reporters on Sunday night that there is a 60-40 chance that the national team will not schedule workouts for this week, since he’s thinking of the players’ welfare.
Roger Pogoy and Troy Rosario are coming off TNT’s clash versus Magnolia last Saturday in Davao. The KaTropa will play again on Wednesday, November 20, at Ynares Center versus San Miguel.
The Beermen, on the other hand, are led by pool members June Mar Fajardo, Marcio Lassiter, and Chris Ross.
“Talk ‘N Text is coming back from out-of-town. San Miguel and Talk ‘N Text have a big game on Wednesday,” said Cone moments after Ginebra’s 96-98 loss to NorthPort in PBA Governors’ Cup action.
The season-ending conference is about to head into its playoff stage this week, with the quarters possibly starting on Sunday
One other reason is that Gilas’ supposed tuneup game against a Taiwanese team got called off. Cone said that the latter backed out due to the injuries to some of its players.
“That’s one of the reasons. If we’re not gonna play, we might as well let the guys really rest and get ready, get through the quarters so that they can put their total focus on Gilas and the SEA Games.”
Gilas will resume its preparations for the meet on November 28, and will practice on a daily basis from there.