Gilas Pilipinas Coach Tab Baldwin warns the players of the Philippine Basketball Team to shun away from complacency and lax behavior. The national team is in the thick of preparations in William Jones Cup 2015 in Taiwan and are embarking to form a competitive squad for the upcoming FIBA Asia this September.

Baldwin was weary of the Filipinos ecstacy over the thrilling win against Taiwan A NT. The RP dribblers have yet to face the finest opposition in the Jones Cup and the fiery New Zealand native coach refused to be lax at any point. RP quintet would later be humbled by a resilient South Korea, 70-82. Their next assignment would be against a tough Russian ballclub.

“We will be tested, we will be tested in a lot of way. I was talking about relaxing their attitude and 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 and damage your careers,” stated Baldwin.

Baldwin reminisced the horrors that came with the humiliating campaign in the previous Asiad 2014 in South Korea. The Filipinos failed to advance to the semifinals after suffering another heartbreaker to perennial nemesis South Korea, and the infamous loss to Qatar NT.

“I felt in the Asian Games, it was a real disservice to Chot (Reyes) the way the team played a couple of times. He did a phenomenal job last year (yet) he was really sacrificed,” stated Baldwin.

He further added, “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. There was a lot of stuff going on last year and I felt the team could have helped him more.”

Chot Reyes had a successful stint in the Jones Cup 2012 when they bagged the Gold, then copped Silver in FIBA Asia 2013, and consequently did make it to FIBA World Cup 2014 in Spain. However, the Asiad failure disgruntled a lot of Filipino fans, and Reyes was easily made as the sacrificial lamb.

The Kiwi mentor stressed that overconfidence and the lack of gusto at any time during the tournament could spell sure disaster for the embattled squad. RP Five is also heavily depleted with the exodus of several key cagers like Junmar Fajardo, Marcio Lassiter, Japeth Aguilar and LA Tenorio.

Baldwin ultimately drove the point home, “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.”