“Did he?, or did he not?….

PREVIOUSLY, Gilas Pilipinas head coach Tim Cone, opted to take the nationals, of course with the blessings of SBP hierarchy to participate in a pocket tournament Qatar as part of strengthening of the team’s conditioning, cohesion and mental toughness in preparation for the third and final qualifying window of FIBA Asia Cup.

But, what suppose to be a friendlies match turned out to be a disastrous “learning experience,” The four-nation Qatar tournament (2nd Doha Invitational Cup) invited were Lebanon, African powerhouse Egypt and host Qatar.

Cone’s idea of Gilas’ participation in the said tourney is to familiarise themselves with the middle Eastern team’s physical brand of play at the absence of its’ rim protector, Kai Sotto, sideline with ACL.

The main purpose of its participation, is to keep the team’s in tip-top form to meet every challenges what further adjustment needed to iron in the absence of key player at same time know and gauge the strength and weakness of the opposition.

But the Qatar expedition didn’t turn out what they expected, instead ended a disastrous campaign. at first, it appeared sluggish and struggling start for the Nationals, though they salvaged 74-71 come-from-behind win over the Qataris.

Just when everybody, it was a jittery start, the next two matches was far more even worst, that no one ever thought it. Lebanon outplayed and class Gilas in all department, shooting, rebound, assists. And worst, turnovers, 17, which Lebanon translated it into 71-55 triumph and extended the Lebanese’s dominance of the nationals.

Egypt dealt Gilas Pilipinas a neat tough lesson with a 75-54 blowout as the Egyptians, paraded with three seven-footers as their rim protector against Gilas’s pair of 6-10s in Junmar Fajardo and A J Edu, who is playing for first time since his injury and under Cone.

Gilas’s pair of blowouts drew mixed views of opinions and different sorts of criticisms.But there’s one big speculation propped up by social media sports bloggers and game analyst, as a tactical move or strategy on the part of Cone.

Based on their thorough analysis of Gilas’s matches against Lebanon and Egypt, it looks like Cone held his punches as he gave only limited playing time for his main starters at the same time prevent any possible injuries might incur to key players.

There were reports as well, reaches Cone’s knowledge that venue’s gallery were riddled with scouts, marking every Gilas’ shooters and critically dissecting offensive play patterns that would enable them come up with a solution against the triangle offence.

And to summarise everything, I had one question in my mind, did he? or did he not deliberately threw those games against Lebanon and Eygpt? As a tactical move or strategy?..

Whatever it is, your guest is as good as mine. What do you think?..Don Simon?…