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We were caught out tactically last night against Taiwan U21. Not to say that it was unexpected, given that our team relies more on shooters and lacks much element of surprise. That said, kudos to the manager of Taiwan U21 for his in depth scouting.

Our boys generally had a pretty bad game all round, being limited to 6 and 7 points in the first and third quarter respectively. Tan Su Tong was probably our best player on court. Despite being the only one to hit double figures, he scored a game high 28 points at a 52% clip, which was almost half of our total points scored. His defensive ability also proved valuable to us tonight, as despite opposite number Tan Ming Teck (why does this name sound so local, shouldn't it be "Chen Ming Te" instead?) hitting a team high 20 points, it was from a pretty inefficient 8 of 21 shooting.

Meanwhile, Poon Su Jing managed to redeem himself after two poor showing on the boards by picking up 13 rebounds. Together with Cheung Nie Jin, our frontcourt had a combined 23 rebounds, which amounted to slightly more than half of the rebounds of our entire team, and one less than our opponent's frontcourt. It's quite a promising progress, especially when our U21 has been weak in this department all along.

Our next match will be against Philippines U21. We had a pretty decent defensive game last night. Let's hope our boys step up on offense this time.

WE DID IT!

With barely 30 seconds on the clock, the Kiwis shaved off the 6 point lead we built in the first three quarters to trail us by 1. Kwok Lai Loong failed to finish that run but we were gifted a second attempt which was ran through Kwok Lai Loong again. No good.

With 17 seconds to go, New Zealand U21 took back possession with the defensive rebound and called their last timeout. The end seemed near as their manager drew out their game winning play to snatch away the win from under our noses. 17 seconds and all that hard work our boys poured in at the first 38 minutes would all go to waste.

Then came Hasibul. What a clutch! He read their play well and cut them off midway with a steal. This saw our opponents foul him and sending him to the charity stripe for two - and he sank them both. 9 seconds left on the clock and the Kiwis tried to get back in the game with two successive threes. Thankfully, our boys held on and we walked through to the next round on point difference.

Yes it was an intense game. I had a bad headache after the game and am just starting to recover from it. It was crazy man.

Chenbagarajan Ali played one of his best NT games so far, stuffing the stat sheet with an impressive stat line of 15 points, 8 rebounds, 4 blocks and 2 steals. Cheung Nie Jin was also impressive as the anchor of our defense. His defensive work rate and efforts in providing help defense paid off, as he picked up 5 blocks and 2 steals to make up for his inefficient offense (4 of 14 from the field). Poon Su Jing, who was expected to be the centre of attention, had a surprisingly bad game, netting only 4 of his 13 attempts, lost the ball 6 times and got fouled out in the fourth. However, he was still quite an asset when he was on the floor, as he grabbed a game high 13 rebounds to finish the game with a double double. While most of our players gave their all and stepped up in this game, one player was a surprise package that night. It was none other than Ong Yeng Soon, our elite shooter. Usually the last person to touch the ball in a possession, he suddenly switched his offensive mentality and became our floor general. It paid off, with him dishing out 9 dimes to keep our offense going. Something must have awoken in him while he was injured last week. Either way, it gave us the boost we needed.

We shall now go against our neighbours, Malaysian U21, next week. Let's hope our boys don't gain a few pounds from all the new year cookies!

Last edited by BuzzRBeater at 02/09/2021 11:33:44

nice win bro! we were less favourable but it's always good to beat the odd! keep it going!

Thanks bro! And thank you very much for training your 3 players so well.