If there's anything Tab Baldwin learned from Gilas Pilipinas' campaign in the FIBA Olympic Qualification tournament, it's the need for more intensive training.
The nationals' lengthy training period spelled success in the FIBA Asia Cup qualifiers with the Filipinos beating South Korea and Indonesia.
But going up against world basketball powerhouses Serbia and Dominican Republic is a different matter.
"When we stepped up to the next level, we saw there's a lot of holes a lot of things we have to learn," said Baldwin in an interview on Off the Record with Migs Bustos and Cesca Litton-Kalaw.
"The biggest lesson is the intensity of our training probably supersedes most of the trainings that you would have in the Philippines, just aren't intense enough to get us ready for that caliber of play that we saw in the Olympic Qualification Tournament against Dominican and Serbia."
Baldwin said their training will also need to include tune up games against bigger teams to help the Filipinos adapt to more challenging and physical plays.
"I think we need a lot more preparation games, a lot more international experience for these guys so that they're not sort of she shocked in the beginning of games and we're not constantly finding ourselves having to adapt to what our opponents are doing and claw back, so we can some ascendency in games rather than always trying to figure out ways from keeping the dam from bursting," he said.
Badlwin added that his young Gilas crew also learned the importance of executing every play down to the last detail.
He said it's the only way they can offset or outsmart the bigger and more physically gifted teams in the world stage.
"Details really do matter... What the coaching staff has been preaching, one of the hardest things to get the players to practice religiously is all the minute details of execution," he said.
"So when you get up against say the Dominican team that really physically step in our way and try to impose themselves physically on us, little things like fake before you cut and bump the defenders, things like make cuts fast, not just a pedantic pace that a lot of times in practice they don't do because the defense if different than what you get up against the intensity of that level.
"Those messages now have a lot more meaning to the players."
The all-amateur Gilas Pilipinas was close to pulling off a major upset before falling short against Serbia, 83-76.
Gilas also put up a competitive fight against Dominican Republic in the first two quarters before losing steam and yielding a 94-67 defeat.
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