Gilas Pilipinas head coach Tim Cone, a self-described "big man's coach," is delighted to finally have his full Triple Tower complement at his disposal: the frontcourt combination of 7-foot-3 Kai Sotto, 6-foot-10 AJ Edu and 6-foot-10 June Mar Fajardo (JMF) that he envisioned from the very beginning.

Mr. Cone, the winningest head coach in Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) history and the man who steered Gilas to the gold medal at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games, has long built his championship teams around dominant size, making the availability of all three big men a particularly meaningful development for his program.

Major knee injuries had left Mr. Cone working with only two of the three big men across all of Gilas' campaigns over the past two years. But the stars aligned for the fourth window of the FIBA World Cup Qualifiers, with all three finally healthy and available.

"I've always favored big teams so I'm a big man's coach," he said.

During his previous stint at the helm in 1998, Mr. Cone assembled a frontcourt of 7-foot-1 EJ Feihl, 6-foot-9 Marlou Aquino and 6-foot-6 Dennis Espino for the squad then known as the Philippine Centennial Team.

After losing Mr. Edu and then Mr. Sotto to injury one after the other, the Gilas strategist is now ready to harness the potential of that duo alongside Mr. Fajardo — a trio whose average height is 6-foot-11. Mr. Fajardo, for his part, is the most decorated player of the group, a record eight-time PBA Most Valuable Player whose impending international retirement adds a note of finality to this window.

"I love coaching big men so to have Kai and AJ and June Mar a part of this team is really fun for me. And I'm trying to figure out how best to play them. I'd like to play them together more," he said.

Mr. Cone got his first chance to deploy the trio in Friday's duel with Jordan, though the game ultimately required a shift to a "smaller and faster" approach as the Nationals battled back from 18 points down to win in overtime, 82-81. The comeback underscored the coaching challenge ahead: finding the balance between the size advantage the Triple Tower lineup offers and the mobility that international opponents can exploit.

Messrs. Sotto and Fajardo started the match, with Mr. Edu coming off the bench to relieve JMF. Messrs. Edu and Sotto then took turns manning the paint before joining forces in the closing stretch.

Mr. Sotto finished with 18 points and 14 rebounds and made the game-saving block on Abdullah Olajuwon.

"The thing about Kai, yes, he's 7-foot-3, but his knowledge of the game, his instincts, is like a point guard really. Because he's really that smart, that makes him make the people around him better, whether it be through passing or screening or rolling," Mr. Cone said of Mr. Sotto.

Mr. Edu contributed nine points and 11 rebounds — seven of them on the offensive end — while anchoring Gilas' defense against Jordan's pick-and-roll schemes involving Jalen Harris and Freddy Ibrahim.

"AJ was phenomenal. AJ, with his defensive versatility, was able to jump out on screens and really kinda stop (Jordan's) offense in its tracks," said Mr. Cone of Mr. Edu.

"Without that, we wouldn't have been able to get back into the game, and that was one of the defensive big adjustments that happened because of what he was doing, and that really changed the tempo of the game."

Mr. Fajardo, who has expressed his intention to retire from international duties after this window, accounted for two points, a rebound and an assist in his five-minute, 27-second appearance. — Olmin Leyba