With top guard Dwight Ramos nursing an injury, Gilas Pilipinas will rely on backups SJ Belangel and RJ Abarrientos in their faceoff with Serbia.
The two will have to hold their ground against Serbia’s top guard Milos Teodosic, who has an intimidating credential of having earned both the Euroleague MVP and the FIBA Europe Player of the Year awards in the past.
“When you play against a player like Teodosic, you want to compete. You’re desperate to test your skills against a player who’s played at a level that Milos has, and is a caliber of a player that he is. But the other thing we keep alluding to is we want to learn lessons,” said Baldwin during Monday’s Zoom huddle with scribes.
Group A action in the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Belgrade, Serbia began with Serbia playing against the Dominican Republic.
Serbia, which is currently ranked no. 5 in the world, battles Gilas at 2:15 a.m. (Philippine time) at the Aleksandar Nikolic Hall.
Baldwin feels that the encounter that Belangel and Abarrientos will have with Teodosic will be memorable.
“We want to realize that you’re going up against a master of the game and there are things that you can learn from the big picture when you go back and review the video, but also you want to test yourself and what you can learn from possession-to-possession,” said Baldwin.
Now 34 years old, Teodosić represented Serbia at the 2016 Summer Olympics where the Serbs settled for the silver medal, after losing to the United States in the final game, 96–66.
The decorated Serb, who played for two years with Los Angeles Clippers before he went to Virtus Bologna recently, has been playing for the national team since 2005.
Ramos is a doubtful starter after sustaining a groin injury last week when Gilas played three matches during the Clark window of the 2021 FIBA Asia Cup Qualifiers.
Former Phoenix Suns chief tactician Igor Kokoškov, who just took over as the Serbian national coach, said the team had only a week to prepare for their matches against the Philippines and the Dominican Republic. Peter Atencio
“This is quite a challenging tournament. I have new guys and new faces in the team,” said Kokoškov, adding they will have to make do with little preparations they have in their two games.
“For training camp, there was no basic preparation. The guys were just coming, and everyday we have a new face in the locker room, we have a new face in the hotel. And it wasn’t easy from the coach’s standpoint to put the pieces together,” Kokoškov.
Serbia’s talented roster also includes swingman Nemanja Bjelica, big man Boban Marjanovic; and vets like Stefan Jovic and Vasilije Micic.