After last week, with China U21's highest paid player out and injured, and another top player facing game shape issues, I legit thought we could have pulled off an upset. Fast forward to yesterday, our hopes were dashed as he came back.
Well maybe we never stood a chance after all.
Our boys were held back on offense most of the game. Despite having 4 players score double digits, Zhang Long Yew was the only one out of six players with 5 or more attempts to score more than half of their shots, and he was above 50%. He was also the only starter to do so. His efficiency spread to the charity stripe as well as he hit all 4 of his free throw attempts, being the only player to not miss a free throw, and was a menace on defense, rejecting 7 shots. However, he was constantly bullied on the boards, and managed to only pull down 4 rebounds.
Abdul Chaudri was our best offensive player in terms of stats, as he finished the game with a team high 14 points and 3 assists. However, he evidently is more comfortable playing at point and orchestrating the offense, as his shooting splits of 20-10-60 saw him have the worse efficiency of the team. However, it wasn't all dark clouds on offense. LDS duo Chow Choon Dong and Chng Siong Chin shot pretty well from distance, while Tong Puay Jia hit all his field goals, despite missing 2 of 6 free throws.
Our boys played pretty decent defense, despite the huge shortcomings on offense. Although we allowed China to hit 47% of their 3s, thanks to substitute Zhang Minhua hitting all of his attempts from the arc, and that we conceded 30 or more points in the third or fourth quarter, however our boys were pretty tidy on defense. Yes, there were no outstanding defensive performance outside of Zhang Long Yew's 7 blocks, however our players did not commit too many fouls, only allow our opponents to shoot 11 free throws. Meanwhile, our boys had 21 free throw attempts, but sadly, most of them were squandered.
We shall face a more equal opponent next, in the form of Thailand U21. Let's hope everything goes well this time.