When the 23 for 2023 Gilas Pilipinas Cadets were gathered last January, many were in awe of the collection of talent the pool has. The Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas gathered the best, the finest, and the brightest stars in both the collegiate and high school ranks.
What they did not expect, however, was how the team is currently performing in the on-going 2018 Filoil Flying V Preseason Cup, presented by Chooks-to-Go — and particularly, how the young team crumbled against the De La Salle University Green Archers on Friday evening.
The team composed of alphas showed a lot of promise in the first half of that game, leading by as much as 20 points in the first half. But as the Green Archers ramped up their defense, the Cadets crumbled under the pressure.
“Tale of two halves.
“I thought in the first half, we addressed the issues we had in the first game. In the one practice that we had, we addressed issues that in the first game, naturally we relied on individual talent, our offense had no direction. That’s part of familiarity. I believe in the first half, we addressed that. We were able to run to offense well, we were hitting shots,” recalled Cadets head coach Josh Reyes.
“When La Salle cranked up the pressure, cranked up the physicality in the second half, then we reverted to our bad individual habits. I feel like this team… I can say one thing: We anticipated struggling because of how the set-up is. But really, that’s why we had a long meeting because we did not anticipate, we will accept them struggling for whatever X’s and O’s on defensive schemes, pasahan, offense ganoon. Getting shots, making a turnover,” rued the second-generation tactician.
“We cannot accept the lack of effort.”
The Cadets essentially gave up when La Salle heated up in the final frame as the contest closed out with a 20-1 blitz. Gilas gave up 20 offensive rebounds in the contest that led to 20 points. Moreover, La Salle simply wanted it more as they dove for loose balls, jammed the passing lanes, and boxed out better.
What Reyes sees as a problem was that guys like Kobe Paras, Ricci Rivero, among others are used to having teammates that have been doing the dirty work of them. The problem is all of them must embrace their new roles of taking one for the team.
“It’s not a secret, we want to give a lot of opportunities to Ricci Rivero and Kobe Paras, to [Juan] Gomez de Liano, the young guys. For Abu [Tratter] and to those who haven’t got a lot of minutes, these are the guys, you know, that we can accept their miscues, but not the lack of effort,” Reyes pointed out. “We felt a lot of instances, too much, too many instances in the second half where it’s just lack of effort. Lack of ‘laban’.
“And that’s we shout everyday in the Gilas program, yung laban.
“The players have the personality of having players to do this for you, do the dirty work for you. But if you’re a collection of star players, some guys really have to sacrifice and do the dirty work themselves,” Reyes stressed.
The Cadets only have a day to soak all of this in. On Sunday, the Nationals will face defending NCAA Champions San Beda Red Lions. And the team’s staff is hoping that the players take the initiative to figure things out.
“Right away, we are not expecting a quick turnaround. We won’t have practice because of the schedule. So without practices, we have to show what we talked about in the dugout. That’s all we are asking for now because we can’t expect perfect execution from them but we need perfect effort all the time. We can’t rely on somebody to do the dirty work for you. Somebody has to step to the plate and do it,” Reyes expressed.
“Not somebody, everybody.”
