Another match of the Mercantile Basketball League was held last evening at the Henry Pedris Basketball court, in which MAS Holdings triumphed over Nations Trust Bank. Read on to see the match report.
Peoples Team of the MSBA League 2017 – Vote
The 27th Edition of the Mercantile Basketball League will commence during the third week of June..
After a couple of attempts by both teams to score, NTB was the first to get a point through a free shot. As the teams warmed up into the game, MAS showcased good movement on the court by all their players moving around to find a clean shot. Along with quick-moving players, they also had an advantage when it came to height as the average height of the MAS players was more than that of the NTB players. This gave them the upper hand when it came to collecting rebounds and defending their opponents. MAS was able to take a slight lead in the first quarter while NTB struggled to get through the defence and score.
First quarter: MAS-14 NTB-5
MAS Holdings had good team coordination with a lot of passes on the court leading up to successful offensive plays, whilst also taking advantage of the strong bench they had rotating their players when necessary MAS dominated the half both up and down on offence and defence. While NTB, on the other hand, struggled to close the gap between the teams. MAS took advantage of the good shooters on the team and scored mainly through jump shots increasing the deficit.
Second quarter: MAS-27 NTB-14
While MAS was relying on the same game plan of jump shots followed by strong rebounds, NTB switched to a man to man defence to try and stop the jumpers MAS was taking although they did reduce the deficit to an extent it wasn’t enough to turn the tables on MAS because it didn’t make up for the shots missed by NTB. Along with the fact that NTB failed to watch the foul count giving MAS numerous opportunities at the line to keep the lead going into the final quarter.
Third quarter: MAS-43 NTB-31
During the final 10 minutes, NTB switched to a full-court press and began to close the gap slightly by stopping MAS from taking jump shots. At one point the deficit was as low as 6 points putting the pressure on MAS to keep control of the game. NTB wasn’t the only one to switch up their playing strategy though as MAS also switched their defensive play to a half court press to stop NTB in their tracks which seemed to have worked as NTB lost the plot of the game during the final few minutes missing many of their attempts at scoring and lost to MAS by a total of 21 points.
Fourth quarter: MAS-65 NTB-44
The coach of the winning team had this to say speaking to ThePapare.com: “I think the team has warmed up and is more comfortable with playing since this is their second match. They did a good job of reading the game on the court and playing accordingly. Although our fitness wasn’t up to par yet since we had to make a couple of substitutions but we’re hoping to keep getting better match by match.”
