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Manila Bulletin devider Sports devider Basketball devider Cone eyes tweak to Gilas offense

Cone eyes tweak to Gilas offense

Published Mar 2, 2026 02:19 pm

At A Glance

  • Gilas shot just 33.45 percent from the field including a poor 16-of-68 clip from the three-point territory in the two losses in the February window of the 2027 FIBA World Cup Asian qualifiers, pulling down its record to 2-2.

The two losses of Gilas Pilipinas against powerhouses New Zealand and Australia share a common storyline — the Nationals misfiring.

Gilas shot just 33.45 percent from the field including a poor 16-of-68 clip from the three-point territory in the two losses in the February window of the 2027 FIBA World Cup Asian qualifiers, pulling down its record to 2-2.

Against the Tall Blacks, Dwight Ramos was 1-of-10 from deep, Juan Gomez de Liano was 2-of-7 and Justin Brownlee and Kevin Quiambao combined for 0-of-8. 

Against the Boomers, only Brownlee had a decent outing from deep after shooting 4-of-10. No other player nailed more than one.

Seeing the shooting struggles of Gilas, national team head coach Tim Cone revealed that the coaching staff is eyeing a tweak to the Triangle system that Gilas is running.

“It's back to the drawing board for me a little bit. Like I said earlier, I think we're going to have to look a little bit at our offense and maybe try to simplify things a little more,” said Cone after the team losses to New Zealand, 66-69 and Australia, 66-93.

Cone had actually already hinted at veering away from the Triangle offense he usually employs at the end of the game against the Tall Blacks and that was what the Nationals also did against the Boomers.

For the veteran tactician, the shooting struggle wasn’t really a personnel issue but more of the system not generating the shots he wanted his gunners to get.

“We all have shooters. We got Dwight. We got Juan. We got Justin. We got KQ.

We got guys who can light it on. And Calvin. We have the shooters on the team,” said Cone.

“It's just that we're not generating the shots that we want to generate. It's not about the shots going in or out. It's about getting the quality of shots,” Cone furthered.

“And that's what I said when I talked about we have to kind of look at what we're doing, maybe simplify a little bit more so that we can get a little bit more open looks,” he added.

More than the offensive capabilities of the team, however, the multi-titled mentor stressed that it is still the defense that would win the team the games. 

“We base our team on being a great defensive team. So we want our guys to come out and really lock in the defense. And we think that takes pressure off our offense,” said Cone.

“We're not going to shoot our way into 55 points against a great team, great defense like Australia or New Zealand. We got to hold them down so that we can have a chance to win. We're not going to get into shootouts with these guys,” he stressed.

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