Chot Reyes says Gilas' lack of familiarity led to 'too many' turnovers in loss to Lebanon

Gilas Pilipinas head coach Chot Reyes said their close loss against Lebanon in the fourth window of the FIBA World Cup Qualifiers was a product of the players' lack of familiarity with each other after having only trained together for less than a month.

The national team came as a unit last August 15 to prepare for the window, with Kai Sotto joining the squad on the 18th and Fil-American Jordan Clarkson on the 20th after arriving in the country the day before.

With less than two weeks to create chemistry, Reyes said it resulted in their 85-81 loss, which was marred with their 21 costly turnovers that Lebanon converted to 22 points.

"I thought we battled hard, unfortunately we had too many turnovers. 21 turnovers really was the big difference in this ballgame," Reyes said in the post-game presser.

"And that's just a result of us not yet as familiar with each other as we'd like to be."

Clarkson echoed Reyes' statement, saying it was hard to win a game if they were piling up on turnovers, especially against a Lebanon side who was playing in front of a jam-packed Stade Nouhad Naufal Arena.

"We had a great game plan coming in and I think, like he (Reyes) said, we had a lot of turnovers," the Utah Jazz guard said.

"It’s hard to win when you have 20-plus turnovers in a game like this, especially with the home crowd behind them."

Despite their turnovers, though, Gilas definitely put up a fight.

They led by as many as 10 early in the first quarter before the Cedars outscored them in the second period, 27 to 22, as the home team took a slim 49-47 cushion at the half. The Filipinos kept Lebanon at bay in the second half but a crucial triple from Wael Arakji put the game away.

But Reyes said that with enough time, they can address the issue ahead of their clash against Saudi Arabia on August 29 at the Mall of Asia Arena.

"So if we get some more time, some more practice time together then we should be able to address that," Reyes added. "But like I said, I'm very happy with the way we played, we gave it our best shot but unfortunately, the results didn't come out our way."

—JMB, GMA News