Ex-UM's 7th game yesterday was against SST. SST is the team our Kheng Sun is playing with!
However Kheng Sun was not free to attend the game and did not play yesterday.
SST had 1 shooting guard (No. 7) who is very good at shooting (& making!) 3 pointers. Additionally, SST was made up of veteran players who preferred to shoot 3 pointers.
Game start was delayed due to heavy rain. When the game started the court was still very wet and slippery. These conditions heavily favored SST as we could not fastbreak or play an uptempo game.
We started out playing our preferred zone defense in the hope that we could focus our defense collectively to deny their No. 7 (we had in previous games succeeded in defending opposing teams with 1 or 2 sharp shooters despite us playing zone defense). Unfortunately, whether due to the wet court or lack of focus, we were not able to stop SST's outside shooting.
In just the 1st 5 minutes of the 1st quarter, SST hit FOUR 3-pointers (3 by No. 7) and jumped out to a 16-2 lead!
In the meantime the extremely slow pace of game (due to wet conditions) really took us out of our usual rhythm.
We quickly went to a man defense whilst putting Ben on No. 7 (who was quite a quick perimeter player too). Our man defense was much more effective as SST players lacked ball handling skills. We closed out the 1st quarter on an 11-2 run to draw to 13-18.
However towards the end of the 1st quarter, No. 7 had started to post Ben up in the paint and was giving Ben some difficulty. In the second we decided to try Juin Haur on No. 7. We felt Juin Haur was quick enough on the perimeter and tall enough in the post. Juin Haur came up BIG for us, playing excellent defense on No. 7 (holding No. 7 to just 2 points in the 2nd quarter) and even hitting a 3 pointer of his own. We finally caught up in that 2nd quarter at 21-21 and even took a 4 point lead with 3 seconds left in the half but SST No. 11 hit a 3 point shot from 3/4 court distance (!) to draw within 1 (31-30) at half time.
In the 3rd, with the court finally starting to dry out, we started to push the tempo, dribble penetrate and play a faster game. In order to have our starting 5 on the floor at the same time, we put Pin on No. 7 and Pin also did a great job defending No. 7. Haw Keat hit 2 3-pointers, Pin, Chuan and I all hit a couple of shots each and at the end of 3 quarters, we had a 9 point lead (51-42). Our lead would have been bigger but we kept committing fouls and SST took advantage, scoring 8 of their 12 points in that quarter from the free throw line.
Our second unit started the 4th and continued to play well, maintaining a 9 to 12 point lead. Juin Haur continued to play excellent defense and on offense, hit another 3 pointer and a jump shot. Bik Yih too hit a 3 pointer with the shot clock running down.
With 5+ minutes to go and an 11 point lead (61-50), we substituted the starters back in. At this point, the game looked firmly in hand.
That was when we hit a drought and SST went on an 11-0 run with their No. 12 hitting 3 consecutive "lucky" 2 point shots, a low post score by their No. 14 despite being guarded by the taller Chuan and a 3 pointer by their No. 11 to tie it at 61-61 with about 2+ minutes left.
The next few possesions were empty. Finally with about 1+ minute left, SST No. 14, their post player drew a foul and went to the free throw line where he only hit 1 of 2. Suddenly with a little less than 1 minutes left, we were trailing by 1!
We ran Set 3 with Ben as the cutter. Worried of our Chuan in the post, SST defense left Ben wide open at the 3 point line ... and Ben made his 1st and only 3-point shot of the night! (64-62). What a BIG shot!
On the next possession, I managed to deflect the ball and caused a turnover with 30+ seconds left. We then held the ball till the end of our shot clock but could not find a good shot. I did not want a shot clock violation (which would have allowed SST to call time-out and advance the ball) so I ended up taking a contested shot, 3 or 4 steps from behind the 3 point line.
It was an air ball but more importantly avoided a shot-clock violation. SST rebounded the miss but had only 9 seconds left.
We played defense and SST players were too slow in advancing the ball and ended up taking and missing a rushed, heavily contested, 3 point shot.
FINAL SCORE : Ex-UM win 64-62.
Ex-UM is now 6-1.
We were however very, very LUCKY to have won the game, which equally easily could have been won by SST. Fortunately, our "end-game" execution was steadier and better than SST's.
Scoring disribution for this game:-
No. 4 Haw Keat - 0+0+6+0=6
No. 5 Ben - 2+0+2+3=7
No. 7 Leong - 0+2+0+0=2
No. 8 Juin Haur - 0+3+0+5=8
No.10 Pin - 4+2+1+0=7
No. 11 Chuan - 2+8+7+0=17
No. 12 Loke Yew - 0+3+4+0=7
No. 13 Ming Lip - 5+0+0+2=7
No. 15 Bik Yih - 0+0+0+3=3
With this win, we are through to the semi finals even if we lose our next / last 2 games. However if we want to avoid OAE in the semis, we will have to win at least 1 of our next / last 2 games (against Myth and Kajitsu) this coming weekend (6:30p Saturday vs Myth and 7p Sunday vs Kajitsu).
Thanks to all the Ex-UM supporters who attended the game and suppored us.
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