Gilas gets extra days to train

MANILA, Philippines — Gilas Pilipinas intends to make the most of the extra training days to lock in on Indonesia and get everybody on the same page for their lone assigment in the first window of the FIBA Asia Cup Qualifiers.

The Nationals were supposed to open their campaign on Thursday against Thailand at the Smart Araneta Coliseum but FIBA Asia decided to postpone the said game due to the threat of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19).

Gilas instead will kick things off on Feb. 23 at the Indons’ turf – Britama Arena in Jakarta.

“I think it’s (postponement) a good thing. You know like you get more time to really have everybody understand A: What their roles are; B: what is expected; and C: what they’re going to do out there,” said coach Mark Dickel, whose team learned about the shelving of the home gig versus the Thais Thursday night.

“Any time to you get more days to do that, the games are going to look better... I’m happy about it. We get two or three days more to prepare (specifically against Indonesia) so we gotta take advantage of those days,” he added.

According to Dickel, they would have loved to gain more match experience for this new batch and strut their wares in front of countrymen but understood the current health situation.

“Obviously you want to play more games but at the same time, bigger things are going on in the world than that game. You can be cognizant of the fact that other governments are making decisions if they think of putting their citizens at the safest possible position,” he said.

The Gilas-Thai game was pushed back to a still-undetermined later date in consideration of the Department of Health’s advise to desist from organizing, participating or attending events where big crowds are expected.

Meanwhile, Alaska’s Abu Tratter, one of the big men eyed to fill in for the unavailable frontliners from the original 24-man pool, came on board Friday.

The 6-foot-7 Tratter actually marked his return to Gilas duty after suiting up for the Philippine quintet that played Australia in the second window of the FIBA World Cup Qualifiers in February 2018 in Melbourne.

“It’s a great opportunity,” said Tratter, who, along with Justin Chua, Vic Manuel and Javee Mocon, were asked to beef up Gilas after Christian Standhardinger, Japeth Aguilar, Mac Belo and Matthew Wright begged off either due to injury or personal reasons.

“I’m just trying to soak it up. It’s a new group of guys that I’m working with. I’ll make sure I also learn from the coaching staff, be able to see their defensive and offensive schemes and be able to apply them,” he said.