C Division South Zone Round 1 Game 2: Raffles Institution vs NJC (31-25)

Raffles Institution vs NJC (31-25) OT

The game started off with NJC winning the tip-off and making the first basket. The two teams started trading baskets with neither sides being able to pull away. Neither our defense nor offence was working out very well. This resulted in many turnovers being made by us while attacking. Once again, the same problem occurred in Game 1 happened with this game too: our 2-2-1 full court press. The opponent easily dribbled and passed past our defense and made several easy baskets, while our offence still did not work out. By the end of the 1^st half, we were only leading by a mere 5 points.

As the 2^nd half began, both teams were not making any baskets and the 3^rd quarter ended with us scoring only 1 point and NJC reducing the gap to only 3 points. This was caused by our poorly executed offence. We were not playing according to the plays. We were also not able to make many easy baskets. Overall, the whole offence was played in a very rush manner. Both teams made a lot of team fouls and we were awarded with a lot of free-throws. However, we were not able to grasp these chances and had low percentage foul shots.

As the fourth quarter began, NJC made a fierce retaliation, diving for every loose ball. The bad defense by us and a few easy drives by NJC were the only thing needed for them to tie us. With around 30 seconds ticking on the clock, and the scores tying at 23-23, we tried to make one last offence. However, this was proved futile as the last drive of the quarter made by us got rejected by the NJC post. Now with just around 2 seconds on the clock, NJC made a shot and the shot merely missed by inches, bouncing off the metal.  As the whistle marked the end of the 4^th quarter and the beginning of overtime, we knew it was either win or go home.

In the OT, we stopped our full court press and instead retreated back to playing 2-3 zone. We slowed down our offence pace and not long after, a basket was made by us and we were back in the lead. A few more interceptions and fast breaks increased our lead and we finished OT winning 8-2. The game concluded with the final score of 31-25.

This game was played rather poorly and a lot of improvements could be done. Our 2-2-1 full court pressure and defense needs a lot of adjustment. Another weak point of our team was our foul shots. We were granted a lot of free-throws in the game and our shot percentage was only around 50%. The next game against Guanyang will be at 11.10am, 8^th July at CCAB. It would definitely be a challenge to us but it is a must win game as the victory would give us a better chance of emerging into Top 4 from Round 2. 

Points by Quarter

                     1st ------- 2nd ------- 3rd ------- 4th ------- OT

RI:                   9               9               1             4              8

NJC:                8                5                3              7               2