After coming off a loss that truly hurts, Gilas-Pilipinas is trying to train its sights again on the prize it originally set out to win.

“Our priority is to put last (Saturday) night’s game behind us and get ready for Japan,” coach Chot Reyes told Arab News via a text message on the eve of the Filipinos’ clash against the Japanese as the second round of the 27th Fiba-Asia Championship’s preliminaries get going on Monday.

Finishing second in Group A behind Chinese-Taipei after a bitter 84-79 loss to the Taiwanese on Saturday, the Filipinos try to win the first of three straight they need starting with the 8:30 p.m. clash with Japan at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay.

With that loss, Team Philippines needs nothing less than a sweep of its second round assignments in order to avoid going head-on with defending champion China as early as the quarterfinals in the KO stages.

And the Filipinos – who will play Qatar on Tuesday and lightweight Hong Kong on Wednesday – also need to hope that the Taiwanese lose at least two games in the round for falling into a tie with them would relegate them to the lower spot.

The ultimate goal is to finish at least third and book a slot to the World Championship set in Madrid, Spain next year.

But Reyes knows that he and his squad missed giving Overseas Filipino Workers in Taipei something to cheer about when they folded up in the crunch against the Taiwanese.

“Allow me to apologize to our OFW countrymen for the loss,” Reyes said in the post-game interview, referring to Filipinos who have been maltreated in Taipei as an off-shoot to the accidental killing of a Taiwanese fishermen by PH coast guard a few months back.

Tournament format calls for the top three finishers in each group to carry over their records into the second round. Results against teams that have been ousted from each group will not reflect in a team’s new record, in this case, the Philippines will take a 1-1 slate with its win over Saudi Arabia in the inaugurals not taken into the next round.

Taipei, like Qatar in Group B, Iran in Group C and Kazakhstan in Group D, will take 2-0 records with the Taiwanese joining the Qataris, the Filipinos, Japan, Hong Kong and Jordan in forming Group E.

China, South Korea, Iran, Kazakhstan, India and Bahrain form Group F, with the top four finishers from each new group advancing to the cross-over stages where No. 1 and No. 2 from one group clashes with Nos. 3 and 4 from the other.

Finishing on top of Group E is important, since the possible opponent in the quarterfinals would likely be the Kazakhs, whom the Filipinos handily beat in a friendly match in Manila one week before the Fiba-Asia.

But Jimmy Alapag and Jayson Castro, two of the best guards in the tournament thus far, are saying that they cannot cry over spilt milk at the moment and have instead said “to let them (China) come (in the playoffs).”

“At this point, we’re gonna cross paths with that (Chinese) team one way or another,” Alapag, a one-time PBA MVP and the skipper of the Gilas-Pilipinas squad, said after that heart-rending setback against Taipei.

“What’s important is that we stay together, improve, and be ready for the next round,” added the 5-foot-7 point guard.

The spectre of playing China or even South Korea in the quarterfinals loomed larger after the loss to Chinese-Taipei, since not even a sweep would guarantee the Philippines top ranking going into the KO stages.

Should the Philippines sweep its games in the second round and Taipei loses just one, the Taiwanese will still earn top-ranking because of the winner-over-the-other rule, pushing the Filipinos down to No. 2 and against either China or the Koreans with No. 1 in Group F practically conceded to the unbeaten Iranians.

The Taiwanese also see action today, clashing with Hong Kong in the 3 p.m. game it is expected to handily win.

Iran also sees action and is heavily favored to go 3-0 overall against Bahrain in the 12:45 p.m. game.

China tries to bounce back from a 70-59 loss to the Iranians in the first round by colliding with Kazakhstan, with the Chinese coaching staff expected to field in National Basketball Association veteran Yi Jianlian after making him ride the bench against Iran.

Yi, who saw action for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Washington Wizards in the NBA, is being rested for the KO phase because of a slight hamstring pull and a hurting groin.

Qatar and Jordan slug it out in the day’s first game at 10:30 a.m., with South Korea clashing with Bahrain in the nightcap at 10:30.

The Philippines won the last time it faced Japan, 88-84, in the elimination round of last year’s Jones Cup won by the Filipinos.

But that was a different Japan team then, as it did not have naturalized player JR Sakuragi in the Jones Cup roster. Both squads didn’t cross paths in the Stankovic Cup in Tokyo last September after belonging to different groups in the eliminations.

Japan finished second there behind Iran, which did not have Hadadi in Tokyo.

Gary David has been the missing link for the Filipinos, missing all seven of his three-point attempts in the first three games.

“I’ll do my best to improve in the second round,” David, a two-time scoring champion in the PBA, said. “I know that the team is counting on me. I’ll do everything to help the team win.”

Jeff Chan and Larry Fonacier, guys whom David shares shooting forward positions with, have exploded in different games for the Philippines. And what’s bad about that is that both will be marked men by Japan tonight, making it imperative for David to hit his stride.

Kosuke Takeuchi, a talented 6-foot-10 forward, will share most of the scoring load for Japan with Sakuragi, who will be in for an interesting matchup with naturalized Filipino Marcus Douthit.Douthit has not asserted himself offensively for the Philippines, but he might have to do so starting today.