Gilas starts quest for Olympic berth vs fancied France

MANILA, Philippines – The moment of reckoning has come for Gilas Pilipinas as it squares off with world No. 5 Team France Tuesday night to set in motion an ambitious bid to pull a coup in the Manila FIBA Olympic qualifier and grab a berth in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro next month.

Mere mention of names like Tony Parker, Boris Diaw and Nando De Colo can be intimidating as France’s Eiffel Towel, Notre-Dame de Paris, Arc de Triomphe and The Louvre are captivating.

But the Nationals didn’t work their butts out in training in Manila, Karpenisi, Istanbul, Bologna and back in Manila for two months to be awed by anybody, be it by France’s Les Bleus, New Zealand’s Tall Blacks, Turkey’s Dev Adam, Tristan Thompson and his Canadian teammates or FIBA Afro power Senegal.

They’ve done their job to battle, starting against Parker and his French teammates at 9 p.m. Wednesday before an expected overflowing crowd at the MOA Arena in Pasay City.

Turkey and Canada clash in the opening game at 6:30 p.m.

“We’ve got to stay in the game. We’ve got to nip at these teams’ ankles for 40 minutes, and then hopefully, we get a chance to win in the end,” said Gilas coach Tab Baldwin on the tough task they’re facing in the six-nation, six-day meet.

Baldwin has kept on saying they don’t have a margin for error in this tourney, especially against Les Bleus, who are considered the team to beat in the Manila OQT with all their experience and manpower.

They roared mightily in the 2015 EuroBasket, getting past Finland (97-87 OT), Bosnia and Herzegovina (81-54), Poland (69-66), Russia (74-67), Israel (86-61), Turkey (76-53) and Latvia (84-70) for an automatic OQT berth. They missed an outright slot to the Rio Games in losing the semis game versus eventual champs Pau Gasol and his Spanish teammates.

And they were as impressive in their buildup for the Manila meet.

Gilas Pilipinas, meanwhile, just drew inspirations on tune-up wins over Iran and China and on improvement in its tune-up rematch with Turkey.

On Friday at the MOA Arena, the Nationals stayed right behind the Turks before losing by eight, 84-76. It’s surely an improvement from a 35-point blowout by the same rival a few days ago over in Istanbul.

Eleven missed free throws, mere 33-percent (9-of-27) three-point shooting and 11 turnovers prevented Gilas from making the rematch closer.

Baldwin insists Gilas has no room for mistakes in this world-class competition.

“They can do that on a regular basis, but we can’t. We have to play extremely well. We have to make our opponents play poorly and this is tough to do. This is our task,” he said.

Against Les Bleus, Gilas’ only chance could be playing A-1 basketball for 40 minutes.

One good break for the home team is Nic Batum’s unavailability for the Philippines-France match due to technicality in his NBA contract. Batum has just reached an agreement with the Charlotte Hornets on a five-year, $120-million deal.

But Batum is coming and could already be available to play for their next games.

“If he’s coming, we hope he can play. We’ll just wait for the promulgation of his contract. But it’s not the case tomorrow (Tuesday versus Gilas),” said France coach Vincent Collet.

Aside from Parker, Diaw and De Colo, suiting up for the French side are Joffrey Lauvergne, Antoine Diot, Mickael Gelabale, Thomas Heurtel, Charles Kahudi, Adrien Moerman, Florent Pietrus and Kim Tillie.

This squad topped the 2013 EuroBasket and finished third in the 2014 World Championship.