Baldwin warns against complacency

TAIPEI – The morning after their auspicious Jones Cup debut, Gilas coach Tab Baldwin cautioned his wards that they shouldn’t be complacent, citing the downfall of the previous Gilas team in the 2014 Asian Games.

“I was talking about not taking teams seriously as we move through the tournament. All it takes is a couple of lazy, irresponsible losses and you damage people’s reputation, damage your own, damage your careers,” said Baldwin, recalling the sad experience of former national coach Chot Reyes in the Incheon Asiad.

“I felt in the Asian Games, it was a real disservice to Chot – the way the team played a couple of times,” Baldwin said, recalling heart-rending losses to Qatar and South Korea.

Baldwin talked about the exit of Reyes in the aftermath of the Asiad debacle that followed a magical ride from the 2012 Jones Cup to the 2014 World Cup in Spain. 

“He did a phenomenal job and he was really sacrificed. This is a sensitive subject to be talking about. Chot and I are friends and I felt really bad for Chot. I felt he got the raw end of the deal,” said Baldwin.

“There were a lot of stuff going on last year and I felt the team could have helped him more,” added Baldwin, who served as coaching consultant during the time of Reyes.

In their huddle after practice yesterday morning, he told his players they have a great responsibility on their shoulders.

“I just want to guard them against relaxing and hurting Gilas, and helping everybody involved in Gilas because that’s what it does when you drop your guard and lose to teams you shouldn’t lose to,” Baldwin said.

Baldwin wanted his players not to be happy and relax just with one won ball game in the Jones Cup, not flattered by good words thrown at them after their conquest of Chinese-Taipei.

“We’ll not let anybody inflate our heads. Every team is going to play well at times and every team will play poorly at times,” he said.

The Taiwanese were impressed by this new bunch of Gilas players.

“This team is better plus (they play) tougher defense. So we made a lot of turnovers. (Their) defense is more physical, very easy for us to make turnovers,” said Chinese-Taipei star center/forward Tseng Wen-ting.

“(Their) defense is better and they’re more physical. Their guard and their shooting, we kept paying attention to their left side. Still the Philippines attacked the left side easily,” said Taiwanese coach Chou Chu-san.

Baldwin’s answer is that they need to continue to work hard.

“First win for the team this year and they’re (Gilas players) happy about that. But the only thing that matters is what’s in front of us and not what’s behind us,” said Baldwin. “It still needs to look a lot better. We can’t get too excited.”