Tim Cone will be using a tried and tested formula when he leads Gilas Pilipinas back to the medal podium of the Asian Games.
Cone, the most successful mentor in the Philippine Basketball Association, will be ditching Chot Reyes’ Dribble-Drive Offense in favor of his Triangle Offense when Gilas see action in the 19th Asian Games starting 26 September in Hangzhou.
He said he will be using a variation of the Triangle Offense, which relies on reading and reacting to specific defensive formations.
“Offensively, Chot and I are a little different,” Cone told Daily Tribune in an interview.
“He likes to run the Dribble-Drive while, on the other hand, I’m a Read and React guy. It will be a little different.”
The Triangle Offense has been the system that Cone used in winning a record of 25 PBA titles.
It was also the system he used when the Centennial Team featuring Marlou Aquino, Dennis Espino, EJ Feihl, Kenneth Duremdes, Andy Siegle, Jojo Lastimosa and Jeffrey Cariaso emerged with a bronze medal in the 1998 edition in Bangkok.
Cone admitted that they are already running out of time with the prestigious continental spectacle only a couple of weeks away.
But he remains patient in teaching the players who are not yet familiar with the Triangle Offense.
“We’re really focused on ball movement and people movement, and we’re going to have a little bit more post work with what we have now in our team,” Cone said, adding that they have to take advantage of their height.
After all, Cone has the luxury of deploying six-time PBA Most Valuable Player June Mar Fajardo and naturalized player Ange Kouame as well as forwards Japeth Aguilar, Moala Tautuaa, Calvin Abueva and Jayson Perkins.
“Probably, we’ll have less transition than what a lot of fans expect, but we’re going to be highly defensive-minded,” Cone, who joined Jong Uichico in polishing the defense of the Gilas team in the previous World Cup, said.
“We’re defensive-minded in the FIBA World Cup, so there’s not much changes there on the defensive end, but there are a lot of changes on offense.”
Cone, however, refused to rate the squad as it is only in its fourth day of training.
“We’re only on our fourth day. We’re not measuring ourselves right now. We’re looking at what we can do today, what we can do tomorrow and the next day. We’re just really focusing on the process,” Cone said.
“If we have to play in the Asian Games tomorrow, we’ll be terrible. But that’s okay. We don’t have to play tomorrow.”
“We need to keep on developing and getting better. Everything is coming together at the right time, so I’m always an optimistic guy and we’re going to focus on the process, day in, day out.”
