Bad enough.
Our group in the Manila Olympic Qualifying
Tournament include what is probably the strongest team in the entire qualifiers
(France) and in the other group, arguably the second or third strongest team
(Canada). New Zealand, Senegal, and Turkey complete our group and of the three,
it’s only Senegal that I’d say we’d be the favored to win.
The short tournament format makes every
game a must-win: lose one and you’ve got one foot out the door. So starting the
tournament off by going up against the prohibitive favorites, France, certainly
puts us in a bad situation almost immediately. If the likes of Tony Parker,
Nicolas Batum, Rudy Gobert, Joakim Noah, Boris Diaw, Evan Fournier, Ian Mahinmi
and Nando de Colo show the deadly form they showed at the 2014 FIBA World Cup,
they should be heads and shoulders above everyone else.
The New Zealand game is a game we can
win…if we play to our potential. The Kiwis will certainly be more physical than
us…after all, they hone their game against Australia, one of the best in the
world. So, in their minds, they will be the favorites to win. But a healthy
Jason Castro, a fit Andray Blatche, a pain-free June Mar Fajardo and NBA star
Jordan Clarkson should be more than up to the task.
Which brings us to the knock out games.
It’s win or go home time and my guess is we’ll finish second in our group
(after France). Which means we’ll probably go up against fast rising basketball
superpower Canada. I actually like our chances against Canada, seeing as they
may be more talented but experience and guile are definitely on our side. The
Canadians are still trying to learn how to win so if we can force Canada to
panic by playing hardcore defense, they’ll lose composure and make unforced
errors.
If we do win against Canada, we’ll probably
go up against France again. With an Olympic berth on the line, I think Gilas
will try to bumrush the French in an effort to take them out of their game. Let’s
hope it’s enough.
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