CHANGSHA – The Philippine national men’s basketball team will have a huge mountain to climb when it takes on host China in the final of the 2015 FIBA Asia Championship in what is expected to be a hostile environment at the Changsha Social Work College Dayun here in Hunan, China.
It won’t just be the Chinese national basketball team that Gilas Pilipinas will need to beat – they’ll have to overcome the home court advantage as well.
But Gilas coach Tab Baldwin remains unfazed by the task, especially as he doesn’t think too much of the passion that the local crowd has been bringing to the games.
“They’ve got (homecourt advantage) and they can have it for all I care. Let them come play in front of Philippine fans. Those are real fans. These are fake fans,” Baldwin said after his team’s 81-70 win over Japan in the semifinal round.
“They don’t know the game of basketball. They just sit up there and cheer when they’re told to cheer. They don’t bother us at all. Noise is noise. What’s that got to do with anything? Nothing. We’re not interested in that.”
The Philippine coach, a veteran of many international basketball campaigns, revealed that the gamesmanship had already begun even before either team advanced to the final.
One way it has manifested, Baldwin believes, is in the the unfavorable scheduling that the Philippines and Japan received in the semifinal match. The game was set for 9:30 p.m. on Friday night – less than 24 hours before the championship match the following day – but was pushed back even later on the day of the game.
“China fixed that pretty well. They made sure we played the late game and then they pushed it back a half an hour. But when you play here, you expect that. I’ve been through it before. I know there’s no such thing as a level playing field in China,” Baldwin said.
“So we have to beat not just the Chinese basketball team, we have to beat all the external factors that come into play when you play in China and we have every intention of doing that. I mean, I’m pissed off already just getting ready to play the game.”
China, though, has an impressive run, going unbeaten in eight games in the tournament. Their winning margin has only been under 13 points once.
He stressed, though, that the Philippine team, despite all the hiccups along the way, came to this tournament for one thing and one thing only.
“We didn’t come here to play the final. We came here to win,” he said.
Source: Mikkel Bolante of Interaksyon.com
