Gilas turns focus on first FIBA World Cup opponent Dominican Republic

The Gilas Pilipinas national team will go full throttle in its few remaining practices as they turn all their attention to Dominican Republic, their first assignment at the 2023 FIBA World Cup here.

The Filipinos will take on the Dominicans, ranked No. 23 in the world, on the opening day on August 25 at the Philippine Arena.

And head coach Chot Reyes is hopeful that the work they put in these past weeks that they spent on training camps and tuneup games will reflected in their World Cup opener slated three days from now.

"We're now going to condense everything that we've learned in those last two months and in all the two tuneup games that we've played in the next three days of practice," Reyes said in an interview posted by the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP) on Tuesday.

"Combination of video and court work to make sure that we'd be ready to be at our highest form for August 25."

Gilas started convening as early as April in preparation for the 32nd SEA Games in Cambodia in May. As part of the buildup, they entered a closed-door training camp in Laguna before they flew to Phnom Penh, where they successfully reclaimed the gold medal after trouncing host Cambodia in the finals.

They took a short break before convening again in June, where the nationals left for Europe to set up camp. They figured in a series of tuneup games there against Estonia, Finland, and Ukraine with Justin Brownlee leading the pack as the naturalized reinforcement.

Gilas returned home before again flying to China to join the 2023 Heyuan WUS International Basketball Tournament, where they ended up with a 3-1 win-loss card after winning twice against Iran and once against Senegal.

Both camps were missed by naturalized Jordan Clarkson and big man Kai Sotto, but the two key pieces finally joined Gilas Pilipinas when they took on three other World Cup-bound nations in friendlies over the weekend.

They ripped Ivory Coast before losing two games in a row against Montenegro and Mexico.

"Well, obviously we would've wanted to win this last game in particular. But [there are a] lot of positives," Reyes added.

"We saw, finally...we were able to get Jordan, Kai, and Scottie (Thompson) play with the rest of the guys and I think that's the most important thing sa pagpasok sa World Cup—that we're not going in cold."

"Like I said, that's what we have right now—the best we can do. So these three days are going to be very, very important."

Dominican Republic is led by NBA star Karl-Anthony Towns of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Aside from Towns, also tipped to power the Dominicans are Victor Liz, Lester Quiñones, and Eloy Vargas as they look to improve their 16th place finish from the previous edition of the World Cup.

In 2019, they racked up two wins against Jordan and Germany but lost to France. Still, they entered the second round where they lost both games to Australia and Lithuania to bow out of contention.

Gilas Pilipinas and Dominican Republic are bunched in Group A alongside Italy and Angola.

—Bea Micaller/JMB, GMA Integrated News