The hawks came into their 4th game of the season moderately motivated as this was to be the worst team that they had played so far. As we arrived at staggered intervals as usual the organisation and size of the team was slightly intimidating as they were all prepared running already. When the kit finally arrived we got changed and began to start hitting our shots.
The first quarter started and in normal hawk fashion we started well with a want and passion to win the game however it only took 4 minutes for the other team to start noticing the many mismatches they had what with having very long guards and ball handlers. This tactic of screening and cutting hurt the hawks running up the score but more seriously running up the personal fouls on our key inside defenders. Conceding a large amount of fouls in quick succession is highly deflating for any team so as you can imagine we went in to the second quarter lacking all passion and they proceeded to run up the score.
The use of simple screen plays was what took us down. We were unable to rotate quick enough meaning we were always reaching across giving away silly weak fouls which the referees were definitely not shy of calling. Our main downfall being the stupid amount of turnovers we gave away and then not running back on defence meaning they got points easy off the fast break. About 40% of their points are likely to have come from our mistakes and not only did this hurt the score but it definitely damaged our mentality.
The third quarter was our best we outscored them by one point playing a patient well-structured brand of basketball with scoring efforts from bench players coming in very handy.
However after this it went downhill in the fourth quarter. What with two of our essential big men being fouled out questionably on a charge attempt the paint was free for the Junior Blades to attack.The game ended 73 – 39 in a unfortunate loss for the Hawks. A game soon to be forgotten.
Written By:- Christian Haynes
