While
going through some of my notes for the NZ camp, I couldn’t help but be
amazed at how prophetic some of things discussed and worked on had on
the results of making it back to the world cup.
1. During the team meeting to discuss Chot’s selection of the final 12 a few things stood out.
· “I’ve
always been consistent from day one that I want a team that is
versatile and quick. With Kelly Williams absence , Japeth is our only
athletic big , we need him to execute our aggressive pressure defence.
· Madami nag sasabi bakit ako pumili na 3 PG’s , (again Chot was consistent with his approach for speed)
· Belga showed his commitment to the team and his role to be a mentor to Junmar, the sentiments was Junmar needed to improve
· Chot
mentioned MVP has agreed to his request that Belga and Slaughters
receive all the privileges and perks as members of the team. (including stay at the same hotel during FIBA Asia)
2. Tab works on defensive scheme and individually with the bigs on focus areas to work on
· A pick and roll defensive scheme named after”Tab” was created and practiced - Instructing how the small and big man should cover the P & R. (scouting on what to give based on a players offensive strength & weaknesses was the basis for how to defend the P &R). Junmar really struggled with his footwork executing what was required
· Tab put special attention and focus on Pingris and Japeth individual defence approach. He knew they would be key to winning
· He worked with Ping on his shooting stroke (Ping shot very well from the FT line in FIBA)
· He worked on Jap’s face up game , jumpers and hard drive
3. Chot’s assessment on team chances after teams watch jones cup
· We can beat any team in the Jones cup, no one is going to be able to stop us from running our offense and getting our shots. They can only hope we miss enough of them
· It’s
defence and rebounding that we really have to work on ( Tab’s says the
Philippines has a reputation as a poor rebounding team, most teams
attack this weakness) - True enough defence is what we lacked vs Tiapei in the loss and defense and rebounding was what won it for Gilas vs Korea.
