Yesterday's opponent was an outside shooting team. Many of them shot the 3 point shot extremely well especially their No. 15 and No.11. They also shot FTs extremely well.
However they were all "catch & shoot" type of shooters and were weak at dribble penetration & low post.
We therefore concentrated on "chasing" them off the 3 point line & "side guarded " them, forcing them to dribble. All their shots off dribble were misses.
On defense, our opponent played a 122 match up zone with players face guarding us at the perimeter instead of shifting to the ball. This left a lot of room for our post players as well as dribble penetrations and we scored relatively easily.
So long as we stayed focus on defense and concentrated on denying their No. 15 and No. 11 the 3 point shot, our score would steadily pull away. We scored 28 points in the 1st quarter but also allowed them to score 19 points on 4 three pointers, 5 FTs and only 1 two point shot.
We played better defense in 2nd and 3rd quarters (allowing only 13 and 14 points whilst scoring 16 and 24 points ourselves). At half time we led by 12 points and after 3 quarters, by 20 points).
I myself had poor 2nd & 3rd quarters. Several poor passes / turnovers by me. And Kok too had a poor 3rd quarter (lots of lost / fumbled ball). Fortunately other players stepped up - Hung was crucial in helping us rebuild our lead at the end of the half (they had closed to within 6 before we pulled back out to 12). Ben was solid throughout and our starting front court played great (fantastic passing to each other) and carried us most of the game especially in the first half.
Since Chuan and Sem was not with us yesterday our front court was limited to Ming Lip, Leong and Pin (all 3 started). Whenever any of them needed to rest, we had to sub Juin Haur into the front court. Juin Haur had a shaky first half, making a lot of mistakes and unforced turnovers. Our front court of Ming Lip, Leong and Pin had to play substantial minutes in the 1st half. Even I had to take a turn in the front court to give them some rest but I was ineffective and the short stint in the front court really tired me out.
But Juin Haur accepted our challenge tohim and gathered himself at half time. He played great the entire 2nd half. Nothing extraordinary but just playing within his skills (which is good), giving us crucial, solid minutes with great defense, rebounding, hustle and no turnovers / mistakes. That allowed our starting front court to get some rest and me to concentrate on PG duties. Juin Haur even gave us 7 points in the 4th quarter playing within the team offense.
Kok still lacked focus on the defensive end but found his offense in the 4th quarter and at one point scored 9 straight points to keep us comfortably ahead. I also finally found my game in the 4th and was able to handle the opponent's pressure defense comfortably and had some assists.
Overall a complete team effort. Ming Lip was top scorer but almost all players scored and score distributioon was pretty evenly spread out.
Scoring distribution (by quarters):
No. 5 Ben - 8+2+2+2=14
No. 6 Hung - 0+0+2+0=2
No. 7 Leong - 4+4+2+0=10
No. 8 Juin Haur - 3+0+2+7=12
No. 9 Kok - 0+0+0+9=9
No. 10 Pin - 4+4+3+2=13
No. 12 me - 1+0+3+0=4
No. 13 Ming Lip - 8+6+8+2=24
FINAL SCORE : Ex-UM win 88-69.
Ex-UM record is now 3-1.
Well done Ex-UM!
Next game is tonight 8:30pm vs Swoosh.
(ps - this post was typed out on my handheld and posted via email. Pls forgive any typing errors)
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