UM Game #2 Results
UM played TDRA yesterday. TDRA is the team from Taman Desa whom UM played in their first game last season (2006-2007) at Sultan's Cup (2006) ... a game which UM lost by 2 points and in which TDRA committed many, hard fouls against our players.
However, UM's team today is much improved from 2006/7 Day #1 and TDRA was never really able to challenge UM yesterday. UM won 72-44.
As usual, we started out playing pressure man-to-man defense and TDRA ended up playing very disorganized. However, the style seemed to suit TDRA as their players seemed used to playing individual, one-on-one dribble penetration style. Although we were scoring easily on offense and TDRA were having a hard/tough time scoring, TDRA was still scoring or drawing a lot of fouls on our players. Our man-to-man "help" defense clearly needs upgrading and improvement.
As a result, whilst we were clearly "in control" of the game, at the end of 2 Quarters, we were only leading by 11 points.
To counter, the coaching staff decided to have our players play an extended zone defense, with the "point" defender instructed to harass their ball handler and "encourage" him to dribble penetrate and other zone defenders waiting at the back to step in and trap or stop dribble penetration. We had "mixed" success with the strategy. Whilst it was clearly the correct strategy to employ (TDRA was even more disorganized and poor outside shooters), our players' execution (not being used to playing any zones at all) were quite poor, especially on help/recover and rotations ~ often leaving TDRA players wide open for uncontested shots (which they mostly missed).
Nonetheless, the strategy allowed us to break the game open and we outscored TDRA 22-7 in the 3rd Quarter to take commanding 26 point lead entering the 4th.Quarter.
The 4th Quarter saw both teams losing mental focus and playing sloppily. Little defense but low scoring as well. We won the last quarter by a mere 2 points (15-13). Our team has to do a much better job of finishing off teams and must maintain their mental focus on both offense and defense for the full 40 minutes of the game. Had the opponent been a strong team, they could very well have made a serious come-back challenge.
The very purpose of this competition for UM is for the learning experience and for UM to regain (and exceed) our standard of play last year. We therefore hope that the players will learn from the games and begin to improve their mental focus stamina. The coaching staff will continue to remind the players and will begin to expect much better mental focus from players going forward.
Individually, several players have continued to play well and a few are continuing to surprise us. Below is a list of brief comments and reminders for our players:-
No. 4 - Jensen - playing and scoring well - continue to just play the game and the let game come to you - do not shy away from opportunities to dribble penetrate and create opportunities or score
No. 5 - Poh Guan - continue to put pressure on opponent defense especially in open court, fast break situation - continue to provide good on-court leadership - try to get more defensive rebounds - continue to improve shooting percentage
No. 6 - Kok Way - need to play better "help" defense - positional defense is wrong (too near to opponent even though 2 or 3 passes away from the ball) - shoots the 3-ball very well and therefore needs to look for his shot on offense more
No. 7 - Phang - reliable veteran - continue to lead by example on defense - much improved 3 point shot this year - pick your spots/time to be really aggressive on offense (shot or drive)
No. 8 - Chang - one of the surprises - playing PG well - good decision making - good natural instincts - trust them (your instincts) - continue to be focused on passes and avoid lazy passes or unforced turnovers - stay aggressive on offense - shooting touch returning - keep working on finding range from 3 point
No. 9 - Chuan - reliable veteran - continue to shoot the FT well - excellent penetration move going to the right (usually on secondary break) - need to add ability to make the same cut as effectively going to the left - making good passes into the interior (usually to Chen Wee) or to baseline (usually to Jensen) but perimeter passing (point to 45 degrees) a bit lazy - don't just settle for trying to pass over opponent especially when opponent is guarding closely - create space and improve angle before passing
No. 10 - Saik Poh - another surprise - playing extremely well - very athletic and quick - impressive jumping abilities - continue to play good defense and stay active and aggressive on offense - get more offensive rebounds and put back scores - shooting 2 Pt well - need to improve 3 Pt shot and dribble penetration skills
No. 11 - Fai - hand injury - get well soon - in the meantime, improve stamina (jogging, treadmill etc.)
No. 12 - Amirul - excellent court vision and good no-look passes - needs to eliminate "small" bad habits on defense that tend to get referee's picking on you - need to avoid picking up "silly" fouls (e.g. fouls on players way beyond scoring area) - focus on your strengths - playing excellent help defense and providing on-court leadership - need to improve and regain 3 Pt shot - need to get a reliable pull-up 2 Pt shot
No. 13 - Wei Cheng - excellent help defense to block shots - good rebounding - need to improve physical stamina and strength - need to improve shooting percentage from beyond 5 feet to 15 feet
No. 14 - (Amare) Yuen - another surprise - playing well - always a size and strength advantage - need to learn to use those advantages even more effectively - continue to stay active and aggressive on offense and defense - need to "assess" surrounding before beginning post-moves - needs to slow down just before releasing shots (do this by "hanging" in the air a few milliseconds) to improve shooting percentage
No. 15 - Chen Wee - reliable veteran on defense and team offense - need to regain focus on shot release and increase shooting percentage for heavily contested shots in close - not just "release" the ball early/simply but stay with the shot and finish/make the score - do not shy away from contact
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