Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Raffles Institutiion vs Bukit Panjang Government High (67-57)

Raffles Institutiion vs Bukit Panjang Government High (67-57)


This was the 3rd game of the series of friendly games that we would be playing before the season commences. The game was played at Bukit Panjang Government High. 

At the start of the game, things got off to a rough start as we constantly allowed the opponents to penetrate our defense and get into the paint for easy baskets. Especially their key scorer #11 who managed to maneuver effortlessly through our defense to get baskets. On the other hand, shots that we were throwing up were found clanking off the rim as we struggled to get used to our new environment. This resulted in BPGH having an early lead of 11-4. 

In the second quarter, we manged to pick up our offense while at the same time preventing easy cuts to the basket with our matchup zone defense. We played 2-2-1 defense throughout the whole game and we were able to force many turnovers as the opponents went into a state of panic when facing our defense. At the break, it was all knotted up at 27. 
 
The Third quarter was when we really pulled away. We continued to score with various ways be it from shooting threes from the outside our getting fastbreak opportunities from their turnovers. We managed to outscore them convincingly 21-3 in the 3rd quarter and this allowed us to take a lead of 48-30. 

It was much of the same in the last quarter as we continued to play well, not becoming complacent and thus we managed to hold on to the lead despite their late run to win the game 67-57.



Improvements

It was worth noting that we had 14 fouls called on us while only 3 fouls called for us. We were only able to get a mere 5 free throw attempts making 2/5 whereas the opponent had more than 20 free throw attempts. Though we may complain that the refereeing was biased, in the real game during the season we would have to adjust as regardless, we would still need to pull out a win. We could try to go to the basket more aggressively to make the fouls much more obvious and force the referees to call fouls for us. On the other hand, we have to cut down on the unnecessary fouls like those on the perimeter. 

We shot decently from 2pt range, making 21/41 shots, 51%. However from 3pt range, we were only 7/22, 32%. We can see that we have to work on our 3pt shooting because if we do that well, we can really damage our opponents confidence and lessen the chance of any comeback opportunities. 

Lastly, free throw shooting. Though we didnt shoot many at all, we were only able to make 2 out of our 5 attempts which is a very lowly 40%. This is something we definitely have to work on as if this becomes our weakness, opponents will just foul us everytime we go to the basket and force us to earn our points via free throws. Good free throw shooting can boost our confidence and frustrate the defense.

Strengths

We commited 15 turnovers throughout the whole game. Although it is tough to gauge whether this is high or low as we need to compare with other games that we play in the future, we took care of the ball decently well overall. 

We also managed to get 16 steals as a team as we pressured them and intercepted passing lanes during our 2-2-1 defense and matchup zone defense.

We rebounded the ball pretty well getting a total of 27 rebounds. (21 def, 6 off). This would definitely play a big part if we want to go far as rebounding gets more possessions for us and less possessions for them. We definitely should maintain and if possible improve on this.



Next up would be Dunman Secondary, where we lost all 3 of our previous meetings so far. Stay tuned


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