FOR Gilas Pilipinas, preparations for the playoffs of the 32nd Southeast Asian Games began in its final game in the group stage Saturday against Singapore.
Coach Chot Reyes said the team moved on from its awful defeat against Cambodia by preparing already for the semifinals during its outing against the Singaporeans.
The Filipinos won the game, 105-45, at the Morodok Techo National Stadium Elephant Hall 2 to finish the eliminations with a 2-1 standings in Group A.
Notwithstanding the blowout win, Reyes said Gilas treated the match as preparatory for the next round where it will face defending champion Indonesia , which emerged the top seed in Group B late Sunday.
"This is basically our final practice for the semifinals game," noted the national coach. "We can't really go hard in practice. This is our preparatory practice."
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Host Cambodia as expected, topped Group A with a 3-0 record following a 104-90 win over Malaysia. The heavy-laden naturalized team will meet the second seed in Group B in the crossover semis set on Monday.
Reyes said the final outing against Singapore came just at the right time as Gilas tried to regain its confidence that was obviously shattered with the 78-69 loss to the host country on Thursday.
At the same time, it gave the Filipinos a period to adjust on what went wrong during their game against the Cambodians.
"There are several things that we wanted to achieve both offensively and defensively. It's pretty technical in nature for me to explain. Just suffice to say that there were specific things that we want to do," said Reyes.
"We wanted to already hurdle some of the things that we might need against Indonesia." (RG)
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