Cone among those stunned by Gilas shocker over Latvia

MANILA, Philippines – To say that the entire basketball world was shocked after Gilas Pilipinas stunned World No. 6 Latvia in the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Riga Thursday morning is an understatement. 

The Nationals led by as much as 26 points, but thwarted a furious fourth quarter rally by the hometown bets to grab the 89-80 win.  

It is the first official victory of the Philippines against a European team in 64 years, according to FIBA. The last time it happened was against Spain in the 1960 Olympics. 

Even Gilas head coach Tim Cone admitted that he himself was astonished that the team was able to pull off the massive upset against the mighty Latvians.

“I’m totally shocked to be sitting here in front of you guys after winning this basketball game,” Cone told reporters in the post-game press conference. 

“This is not something we thought we were gonna do, to be honest with you.” 

The game started with Gilas scoring eight straight points. After Latvia found their rhythm, the Philippines just made defensive plays and big shots to keep its European opponents at bay the rest of the way.
 
The nearest Latvia got to was eight points in the fourth quarter, but they could not creep in closer. 

“We wanted to come in and compete and really put on a good show and we got started early, we hit shots early and thankfully Latvia missed shots… But, it just turned out, we got momentum and we just never really lost it,” the mentor said. 

“There were a couple of stretches as Kai said that we kinda lost our way a little bit but it just seemed like when Latvia was just about to make a huge run on us, they would miss an open 3-point shot. And that was just one of those nights for Latvia, they just weren’t hitting shots tonight,” he added. 

“Gotta credit our guys and our defense. We were doing our best, trying to defend everybody, but still, I’ll be honest, I really am shocked to be here but we didn’t come here to win one game. We hopefully can move on and get to the next round and have a chance to maybe play Latvia again in the finals.” 

The most-titled PBA coach stressed that the absence of star guard Arturs Zagars, who broke the assists record in last year’s FIBA World Cup, also helped Gilas. 

The Philippines will try to make it to the next round of the qualifiers when they face Georgia on Thursday evening (Manila time).

And with the win, the pressure is there for Gilas to perform much better against the World No. 23 basketball team paced by NBA players Sandro Mamukelashvili and Goga Bitadze. 

But it is up to the Nationals to not succumb to that pressure.

“You know, whenever you win a game, the expectations go up. You had to keep chasing the expectations and hopefully we won’t feel that,” Cone said. 

“We have to turn around and play Georgia tomorrow, and our country’s gonna expect us especially after winning tonight, they’re gonna expect us to win tomorrow and it’s gonna be a really tough job for us to beat Georgia.”