Raffles Institution vs Fairfield Methodist School (76-56)

Raffles Institution vs Fairfield Methodist School (76-56)


This was our 6th friendly game of the year and our opponents for this one was Fairfield. The game was played at the JC side sheltered courts.

In the 1st quarter, we got off to a blazing start as we took full advantage of our height and banged our way inside for many layups. On the defensive end, we made Fairfield work for their shots as they only were able to shoot from the outside instead of penetrating our zone defense. Naturally, their field goal percentage was not as high as ours and we were able to jump ahead to a huge lead. By the end of the first quarter, the score was 26-10 in our favour.

The 2nd quarter started off with more of the same as we started to force many turnovers from Fairfield and got many fastbreak layups on the other end. We controlled the boards on the defensive end and did not allow them to have many second chance opportunities. The lead eventually ballooned to 44-15 by the 5 minute mark and we were still leading comfortably entering into halftime.

However, the wheels started to fall off for us in the 3rd quarter as our defense started to crumble. We failed to communicate properly with each other and did not put any effort to run hard and close out on the perimeter, giving up a lot of 3 pointers. This may have been due to our complacency when we were leading by a huge margin. Fairfield on the other hand started to make many shots while forcing us to commit silly turnovers, and their morale was soaring. The game that once was thought to be a blowout suddenly became rather close as they cut our lead all the way down to 11 heading into the 4th quarter.

But in the 4th quarter, we showed resilience as we continued to stretch the lead by pressing them full court and once again forcing turnovers from them by intercepting the passing lanes or making them pass bad passes. Much like we did in the 1st quarter, we continued to attack the paint where we had a sizeable advantage and this allowed the difference of score between the 2 teams to increase. This finally stopped their momentum as they started to lose their fire and we were eventually able to bring the lead back up to 23 at one point, eventually winning the game by 20.



Improvements

Turnovers. We definitely need to take care of the ball and not be fazed by the pressure that the other team is giving us. In the 2nd half, Fairfield pushed their defense all the way to half court and started trapping our players with double teams, leading us to turn the ball over frequently, much like what happened in the Ngee Ann game. We need to learn how to keep our composure in these situations. We had a total of 23 turnovers in this game, which is still pretty bad.

3pt shooting. After a hot start in the 1st quarter where we shot a good percentage from 3pt range, we started to go cold in the 2nd half and we ended up shooting 5/28 for the game (18%) while Fairfield was able to convert on many of theirs, which was a key part in their run. They shot an efficient (41%) from 3.

Lastly, our morale. We cannot panic and start to rush when we see a team coming back and cutting into our lead. Rather we have to stay positive and keep our heads high. As long as one guy puts his head down and feels discouraged, the whole team will be affected. We need to stick to what has been working for us and trust that we would be able to stretch the lead again. In this game, we started to panic a little bit when they made a run and their morale started getting high while ours dropped significantly. We have to keep our morale high at all times and keep talking on defense and on offense.


Strengths

Our 2pt shooting was excellent in this game as we converted on 29/50 (58%) from the field. This was a big reason for us getting the win and we have to continue to use our size advantage against other opponents who may be smaller than us.

We did a great job rebounding again as we totalled 38 rebounds in the game. Shao Jie and Jovi played a huge part in allowing us to control the boards as they totalled 25 boards just between the two, 13 and 12 respectively. Rebounding can make winning games much easier.

Lastly, our steals. Although we had 23 turnovers ourselves, we had 25 steals and this means that we definitely had less turnovers than Fairfield as we did not even take into account yet the unforced turnovers that Fairfield may have made. We have to keep the aggression up in our defense.



We will be having 4 games in just one week next week, so do stay tuned for more.