The Philippines’ Gilas Pilipinas is scheduled for a head-to-head game against the Team Indonesia at 8:15 P.M. on December 9, 2019 live from the Mall of Asia Arena, Pasay City.
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Gilas Pilipinas will continue their gold medal bid tonight for the 2019 SEA Games and next on their way is team Indonesia in the semis.
Team Philippines continued its domination in the Group A bracket where they lambasted team Myanmar, 136-67.
Matthew Wright found his shooting strokes in the second quarter to give a boost to the national squad where many expected to end up in a blowout.
Yet, for head coach Tim Cone, the result has a big disparity but they made sure that they maintain discipline and that’s giving their opponent well-deserved respect.
“We were trying to find a balance between playing the game hard and respecting the game and yet not try to run up the score. We don’t want to run up the score and embarrass anybody,” said coach Tim Cone.
“Obviously there’s a big gap in talent between two teams but the SEA Games are all about competition and friendship. You compete but you gain friends, You’re not trying to create enemies in the SEA Games, that’s why we all come together and that’s something we were trying to represent tonight,” Cone said.
“We want Myanmar to keep coming back and keep wanting to play and improve their basketball program. We don’t want to discourage them, no one likes to be embarrassed, humiliated so we’re trying to be respectful and continue to play the game hard, continue good habits going to the next game and not run up the score. And I think we did that,” he added.
Tonight, team Philippines will play against a man who helped build the Gilas program, particularly in its early stage.
That person is coach Rajko Toroman who is now tasked to improve the basketball culture in Indonesia.
His star players are Abraham Grahita and Kaleb Gemilang who will try to make an upset in foreign soil.