Gilas Pilipinas stunned Latvia in their first game at the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Riga. After the game, Gilas head coach Tim Cone admitted – it was a win the team was not expecting to earn.

Gilas came out strong with an 8-0 run, building the lead slowly but surely, ultimately having an impressive 21-point advantage after three quarters. Although Latvia tried multiple comebacks, Cone’s 11-man squad pushed through and earned a monumental victory.

“I’m totally shocked to be sitting here in front of you guys after winning this basketball game. This is not something we thought we were going to do,” Cone admitted in the post-game press conference. “I’ll be honest with you – we wanted to come in and compete and really put on a good show. We got started early, we hit shots early. Thankfully, Latvia missed shots. Also, [Arturs] Zagars didn’t play, that was huge for us. He’s that guy who goes out there and controls tempo for them.”

“It just turned out we got momentum and we never really lost it. There were a couple of stretches where we kind of lost our way, but when it seemed like Latvia was just about to make a huge run at us, they would miss an open three-point shot. It was just one of those nights for Latvia. They just weren’t hitting shots tonight,” Cone said.

After going 12-for-29 (41.4%) in the first game of the OQT against Georgia on Tuesday, Latvia went just 9-for-39 (23%) against the Philippines. Whenever it seemed like they would get an open, uncontested triple, more often than not the shot would miss. Davis Bertans, known for his shooting ability in the NBA, went just 1-or-5 from beyond the arc.

“I have to credit our guys and their defense. We were doing our best trying to defend everybody. Still, I’ll be honest – I really am shocked to be here,” Cone declared. “I’m here to win not just one game. Hopefully, we can move on to the next round and have a chance to play Latvia against in the final.”

Evident by record-setting numbers in the 2023 FIBA World Cup, which the country hosted, the Philippines live and breathe basketball. It’s one of only a few countries in the world where basketball is the number one sport.

Winning against Latvia, who finished 5th in last year’s World Cup, is an achievement that many Filipinos will celebrate, even though it was already around 2 AM in the country when the game finished.

“Certainly,” Cone said when asked whether that’s one of the biggest wins in his coaching career in the Philippines. “Anytime you can get into [the] international arena and have success, that’s a huge feather in your cap, not just for me but for all the players, for the people back home. I grew up in the Philippines, I’ve been there my whole life, I went there when I was 9 years old. People know that about me, and they know that I’m basically Filipino, although I have blonde hair and green eyes.”

“It’s a feather in our cap for everyone. We just came out winning the Asian Games, which was the first time in 61 years. That was also huge for us,” the coach said.

“I think everybody pretty much knows that by now after the last World Cup. We are so passionate about the game, so for us to have success on the world stage really means a lot to what’s going on back home. This is what we’ve always wanted. This a big, huge step for us to be able to play [the] Latvia team at home and just go at them face to face and come out with a win,” the 66-year-old coach admitted. “It’s amazing for us. But we’re here not to win just one game. We really want to try and get to the finals and see what would happen if we get to the finals. That’s really the goal.”

Cone is a unique coach. Coaching in the Philippines since the late 1980s, Cone is best known for running the triangle offense, popularized by the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s. A system that helped Phil Jackson’s Bulls win 6 NBA titles, while not at the same level, helped Gilas Pilipinas defeat Latvia, who were seen as overwhelming favorites of the matchup after their commanding win against Georgia the day before.

Cone has been criticized for relying too heavily on it throughout the years. Now, he was criticized for declaring the 12 players who would come to the training camp and not seeing a bigger pool of players before the OQT to determine the final roster.