New-look Kiwis knows Gilas ‘a little bit better,’ says Cone

Gilas Pilipinas goes up against a new-look New Zealand squad in the Fiba Asia Cup qualifiers this coming Thursday, but national coach Tim Cone knows all too well just how dangerous a team can be when starting from scratch.

“I think this is their first game together, as a group,” he said of the Tall Blacks who will now have Judd Flavell, a member of the famed 2002 World Cup roster, as its new head coach.

“I remember our first game when we played in Hong Kong when we first got together. There was a lot of excitement, a lot of energy and we were raring to play. So we expect that from them,” he went on.

Cone and his long-haul cast geared toward the next World Cup made their debut last February in the first window of the continental qualifiers and quickly made an impression.

The Nationals whipped Hong Kong by 30 points and then crushed Chinese-Taipei by 53 a few days later for an early lead in Group B play.

Since then, the glut of that squad has trained and played important battles together, including the stunning upset of then-World No. 6 Latvia at the latter’s home turf in the Olympic Qualifying Tournament last July.

That string of success might install the Nationals as favorites in the match set at 7:30 p.m. at Mall of Asia Arena. But Cone is looking at it from another angle.

“They’ll know us a little bit better because they’ve seen us in the OQT, and they’ve seen us in some of our windows already,” the seasoned mentor pointed out. “So, in that regard, they are going to have a little bit of advantage.”

‘Jogging your memory’

“Again, the coach is brand new and he’s brought, you know, three or four of his players along so they’re going to have continuity,” he said of New Zealand, which is also going into the clash with a 2-0 win-loss mark.

“They’ll bring in a lot of more size than they have in the past [as] they got a couple of guys who are 6-foot-11, 7 feet. They [have their] youth team and now they’re being brought up. And so, this team looks a lot more, if I may say, a bit younger but more athletic.”

A win over the Tall Blacks will give the Philippine solo lead of Group B, and will finally end a losing skid to the Kiwis. Gilas has lost all of its four previous meetings to New Zealand on the Fiba stage.

Gilas has been holding camp at Inspire Sports Academy in Calamba where they hope to shake off some cobwebs.

“The first practice is always the hardest one because we’re trying to get everybody again and we’re trying to get them to rehash the offense. There’s always a little bit of confusion trying to kind of remember (things), jogging your memory a little bit,” he said on the sidelines of the first day of training.