Philippine national men’s basketball team coach Chot Reyes apologized to Filipino fans after Gilas Pilipinas fell short again in its 77-73 loss to Puerto Rico in the FIBA Basketball World Cup in Seville, Spain.
“We’d like to apologize to Filipino fans and our supporters for not being able to get them a win,” Reyes said after the game, according to News5′s Lia Cruz.
“Our inexperience, of my players of myself as a coach, played a role. We fought hard. Effort was there but wasn’t enough.”
Gilas Pilipinas led by as much as 14 points against Puerto Rico, but couldn’t maintain it in the end as JJ Barea made crucial endgame shots to propel Puerto Rico to victory.
The result was the fourth straight painful loss for the Filipinos, who also fell short in overtime against Croatia (81-78), hung tough against Greece (82-70) and pushed Argentina to the limit (85-81).
“Every game we played we had the ball in our hands, a chance to make a game winning play and we just didn’t deliver,” Reyes said.
Reyes said that the 19 turnovers of Gilas Pilipinas hurt them in the game and allowed Puerto Rico to come back.
“It’s not missed shots in end, it’s just inability to stay out of mistakes knowing how little our margin for error is,” Reyes said.
“Puerto Rico upped the pressure. Key part was late in the second quarter when Barea went to bench and we had a chance to up lead but we kept throwing ball away.”
With the result, Gilas Pilipinas missed its chance of advancing to the Round of 16. The Filipinos wrap up their campaign against Senegal on Thursday.
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