B Division: Raffles Institution vs Boon Lay Secondary (90-25)

Raffles Institution vs Boon Lay Secondary (90-25)



This would be the last of our series of friendly games to end the year 2013. Our opponent was Boon Lay Secondary and the game was once again played at the sheltered courts at the JC side.


The game got off to a really rough start as we struggled to put the ball in the basket, missing many easy opportunities near the rim. We were still able to score points, but instead of us bursting ahead right from the start to open the gap and break their confidence, they scored right after we scored to make it 2-2. This gave them some confidence in themselves and pushed them to score 9 points in the 1st quarter despite our defensive efforts. However, we were still ahead by a decent margin 21-9 by the the end of the 1st quarter.

In the 2nd quarter, we made sure we came out stronger to erase any hope that they still might have had and started playing harder on defense, while running out on fastbreaks more. They could not keep up to the pace that we were at and our hands were everywhere, getting a total of 23 steals in the game.

The 3rd and 4th quarters were more of the same as we relied on our whole teams effort to score as everyone chipped in with the scoring while Boon Lay largely relied on their starting center #10, who single handed scored pretty much half or more than half of his team's points. We were once again to win this game by a final margin of 90-25.

Our player of the game would go to Tristen as he shot a perfect 3/3 from 2pt range and 1/1 from 3pt range. In addition to that, he added 5 rebounds (1 off, 4 def), 2 steals, 2 assists, while only turning the ball over once. It was a very efficient game on his part.


Improvements

Our free throw shooting has to be more consistent throughout the games that we play. In the Dunman Secondary game that we played earlier in the year, we were a perfect 8/8 from the free throw line. Whereas in other games, we were only slightly above 50%. Similarly, we shot 7/12 from the free throw line in this game and we definitely have to improve on this area.

Next, communication. While we are definitely improving a little on this area, we still need to talk every second of the game. We tend to just talk when we feel like it our when we have adrenaline after we score baskets. We should just keep it on for the whole game. This will help us both on the defensive side and the offensive side of the court. Also, the bench can help out. Instead of sitting there and shouting "Good ball" everytime our player scores, we can help to talk on defense and offense as well. All in all, the more mouths the better.



Strengths


We took care of the ball well in this game only committing 7 turnovers as a team while getting 23 steals as well. This means that the number of turnovers we made is at least 1/3 of what we forced from our opponents. We have to keep our turnovers down and steals high consistently in every game.

We also got huge production from the whole team as 8 players scored at least 6 points. This will be huge if we can maintain it throughout the season coming up as we wont miss a beat regardless of who is on the bench resting.

Last but not least, our rebounding was stellar again as we got 39 total rebounds (22 off, 17 def), almost breaking the 40 mark.  We must continue to go in for offensive rebounds regardless of whether we think we have a chance or not and this will then keep our rebound numbers high.




We conclude this year's friendly games winning all games except the aforementioned controversial loss at Ngee Ann Secondary. Our win column consists of teams like Dunman Secondary and Presbyterian High and we have definitely learnt a lot from these games, while boosting our confidence as we now know roughly where we stand. However, we cannot be complacent at all and continue to play hard in every single game. It does not matter if we win by 5 or 50, we have to be there each game, ready to go hard on defense, run back in transition, and run out on the fastbreak while communicating at all times.

2014 South Zone Season, here we come...