NATIONAL team coach Yeng Guiao said that his team’s two-game stint against a Puerto Rican club team on Feb. 21 and 24 will be tough because the visitors are a world power in basketball now ranked no. 11 by the international governing body.

The Philippines is at no. 63.

“Even if it’s a club team, it’s going to be a tough team and they are going to have some size so we need to be able to handle size. This should be a pretty good practice game for us,” Guiao noted.

The national team coach spoke to www.insidesports.ph, Standard Today and Viva Sports after Thursday’s practice with a depleted lineup at The Arena in San Juan.

He said that was because of the PBA Finals, where at least four players were not able to practice (Willie Miller, Sonny Thoss, Jared Dillinger and Ranidel de Ocampo), aside from two other players who are abroad—Ryan Reyes and JayJay Helterbrand.

Guiao revealed that Kerby Raymundo was having some problems with his schedule, while James Yap also had an out-of-town engagement.

Looking ahead to the games against the Puerto Rican side, Guiao said: “We’ll just have to put something together to be decent.”

The coach indicated they would increase the number of practices from two to three next week.

“The natural chemistry is good. We have the quickness, we have the shooters, the scorers but we are a little small in the middle. Our biggest guy is Asi [Taulava] and I think that is still our biggest problem,” said Guiao, who added he was hoping that “some of that problems can be resolved with the arrival of Japeth [Aguilar] in May. We’ll see. But I am pretty happy with the way the team is looking right now.” Ronnie Nathanielsz