The Hindu : Punjab ends its thirteen-year wait
It's been a while since I tracked Indian Basketball. I went yesterday to Nehru Indoor Stadium, a last minute decision to take the bike across town, to watch the finals of the National Basketball Championships (Nationals). For details of the result, please check the above link.
The court was a revelation: Great venue, air-conditioned indoor stadium. The venue itself was slightly far off city center so couldn't attract the crowd the tournament deserves (seen JJ, TNagar courts with similar crowd for club level tournaments).
It was after the first quarter by the time I reached (missed the women's match completely), and TN was trailing by 6+ points. Only during the late second quarter did TN men look like closing the gap, which was put off in the first few minutes of third quarter by Punjab.
A few players stood out with their game, for TN it was #14 (Rikin Pethani?) was a solid offensive contributor, highlight of the game for me was his floating left hook shot. There were not much variety in the rotation, so Punjab was let off relatively easy in that department.They did catch up to doubling him towards the later part of the game, so have to give Punjab credit for marking him too.
For Punjab, apart from the notable names mentioned in The Hindu article, there was the ball handler #9 (TJ Saini?), who was brilliant with his quickness, and had a fantastic first step which often left his defender flat footed. He was a bit iffy at long range though, missed a couple of open long range shots which would normally be expected of a guard. To his credit, he more than made up for his misses by crashing the boards, often challenging the taller TN players successfully.
Overall, it was a not so memorable final, as Punjab exposed many holes in TN's game, including notably rebounding (both defensive and offensive), fast break, and general ball rotation (keeping eye out for open man). In all these three aspects, there were little things missed by TN which could have swung the match to a closer fight rather than a tame affair.
It's been a while since I tracked Indian Basketball. I went yesterday to Nehru Indoor Stadium, a last minute decision to take the bike across town, to watch the finals of the National Basketball Championships (Nationals). For details of the result, please check the above link.
The court was a revelation: Great venue, air-conditioned indoor stadium. The venue itself was slightly far off city center so couldn't attract the crowd the tournament deserves (seen JJ, TNagar courts with similar crowd for club level tournaments).
It was after the first quarter by the time I reached (missed the women's match completely), and TN was trailing by 6+ points. Only during the late second quarter did TN men look like closing the gap, which was put off in the first few minutes of third quarter by Punjab.
A few players stood out with their game, for TN it was #14 (Rikin Pethani?) was a solid offensive contributor, highlight of the game for me was his floating left hook shot. There were not much variety in the rotation, so Punjab was let off relatively easy in that department.They did catch up to doubling him towards the later part of the game, so have to give Punjab credit for marking him too.
For Punjab, apart from the notable names mentioned in The Hindu article, there was the ball handler #9 (TJ Saini?), who was brilliant with his quickness, and had a fantastic first step which often left his defender flat footed. He was a bit iffy at long range though, missed a couple of open long range shots which would normally be expected of a guard. To his credit, he more than made up for his misses by crashing the boards, often challenging the taller TN players successfully.
Overall, it was a not so memorable final, as Punjab exposed many holes in TN's game, including notably rebounding (both defensive and offensive), fast break, and general ball rotation (keeping eye out for open man). In all these three aspects, there were little things missed by TN which could have swung the match to a closer fight rather than a tame affair.
