Gilas Pilipinas will tackle New Zealand tonight in an important match which can decide the Philippines’ destiny within the 2025 FIBA Asia Cup.
The Philippines is coming off a 95-87 loss against Chinese Taipei and eyes to bounce again towards the Tall Blacks, whereas New Zealand hopes so as to add one other win to its report after beating Iraq of their opening recreation.
Solely the highest workforce from every group will instantly advance to the quarterfinals, whereas groups no. 2 and three will bear a playoff for a quarterfinal spot.
“The underside line is we obtained New Zealand arising in two days, and we obtained to prepare for them. You understand, this workforce has proven plenty of bounce again previously, and I feel we’ve a very good likelihood of popping out and enjoying a greater, higher recreation our subsequent day trip,” Gilas head coach Tim Cone stated concerning the Philippines’ upcoming recreation towards New Zealand.
Tall Blacks head coach Judd Flavell, in the meantime, stated going towards the Philippines, together with Chinese language Taipei and Iraq, will even assist them in preparation for the harder phases of the match.
“Our pool is hard, however we like that as a result of if we’ll be our greatest, you understand, these groups are going to assist us expose some areas in our recreation that we have to, and in pool play, an awesome place to do it in pool play to do it towards three superb groups, and we’ve the Philippines subsequent, which we all know very a lot.” Flavell stated.
“We have simply performed them within the qualifiers, as properly, so we all know one another very properly, however that is going to assist put together us for the subsequent phases of the match. So we’ll embrace that, and, you understand, one thing for us to essentially look ahead to, and, I feel, you understand, as you get later into these phases, you wish to be at your finest, so if we will study our classes like we did right now, we discovered our classes within the first half, make some changes, see the expansion from there, after which see the place that leads us,” he added.
Again in November within the FIBA Asia Cup Qualifiers, the Philippines had its first win ever against New Zealand 93-89, however the Tall Blacks bounced back in their February faceoff, 87-70.
Gilas and New Zealand will face off at 11:00 p.m.
—JKC, GMA Built-in Information