Reyes wary of 'sharp' C. Taipei ahead of FIBA Asia

MANILA, Philippines – While Chot Reyes is busy whipping up Gilas Pilipinas to top form, he still finds time to watch their rivals in the Jones Cup.

And he is impressed with the way Chinese Taipei has been playing.

As Gilas’ wrapped up its final practice at the Mall of Asia Arena on Monday before departing for a 10-day training camp in New Zealand today, Reyes told Philstar.com that the team is lagging behind their rivals in terms of preparation. 

“Ang layo natin,” Reyes said. “I’ve been watching the Chinese Taipei games. They’ve in very sharp form and [in terms of form] they are really in very much advance level than we are. I guess because they really prepared hard and early for the Jones Cup dahil sa kanila ýun.”

Chinese Taipei is currently sporting a 2-1 win-loss record winning against Japan, 70-62, and USA, 89-84, behind the sterling efforts of its naturalized import Quincy Davis before losing to Lebanon, 63-83, today.

Gilas will face Chinese Taipei on Aug. 3 in the preliminary stages of the FIBA Asia Men's Basketball Championship. 

“Iran was fantastic. Japan although they’ve been losing, they don’t have all their players but I also like how they’ve been moving,” Reyes observed.

Iran is unbeaten in two games. 

The title favorite from Middle East has won over Jordan, 64-57, with NBA center Hamed Haddadi and Mahdi Kamrani scoring 15 points apiece then rolled over Taiwan B, 77-64, behind the double-double efforts of Asghar Kardoust (17 points and 10 rebounds) and Rouzbeh Arghavan (11 points and 11 rebounds).

Japan, meanwhile, lost its first two games to host Chinese Taipei and Lebanon.

‘Yung Korea wala pa kasing nakalaban na masyadong malakas.  Pero we know that Korea is always dangerous,” Reyes said.

South Korea trashed Egypt, 80-63, before fending off USA, 85-79 today. 

Norman Black, one of Reyes' assistant deputies in Gilas, is in Taiwan to scout their rivals in Jones Cup.