Tuesday, February 11, 2014

B Division South Zone Round 1 Game 3: Raffles Institution vs NJC (83-25)

Raffles Institution vs NJC (83-25)

Scoring by Quarter
National Junior College vs Raffles Institution
1st Quarter: 6–19
2nd Quarter: 7–22 (13–41)
3rd Quarter: 4–18 (17–59)
4th Quarter: 8–24 (25–83)


In the 3rd game of the first round, we faced NJC. If we were to come out victorious in this game, we would be guaranteed a second round spot. Hence we came out with a sense of urgency and made sure we got out to a sizable lead and not look back.

Much like the previous game against Bukit Merah, we used our length and size to our advantage as we continuously racked up steals while keeping our own turnovers at a low rate. We accumulated 27 steals in this game while only committing 8 turnovers. This was the story of the game as we continuously forced turnovers and got out on the fastbreak every chance we got. This resulted in us getting many easy baskets while the opponents rarely had such opportunities as we always had time to set up our full court press after our scores. Hence we lead throughout the whole game and came out with the win by a big margin of 83-25.


Improvements

Although we had a size advantage this game, the opponents still had 2 big men inside and these 2 posts fought very hard for rebounds. We were unable to box them out on some possessions, giving them an opportunity to try at the basket again which could cost us dearly in future matches albeit not having any detrimental consequences in this game. We need to learn how to box out on every single possession.


Strengths

Once again we were able to disrupt the opposing team's offense with some solid defense, and this resulted in us getting more fast break points, which would be crucial for us to continue to do in future matches. We have to keep the steal numbers high, but have to be careful not to foul too much in the process or get ourselves out of position unnecessarily.




Although this was not really a close game, and we got the win, we cannot be complacent especially with our next opponents being Catholic High, a championship contender. The Catholic High match will be our last match of the first round as both Catholic High and Raffles Institution are fighting for the top spot in the group. The upcoming game will definitely be an exciting one and will be a good chance for us to gain many learning points to go deeper into the season.

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