Saturday 9 January

On the first road trip of the year, yesterday I travelled to Antwerp to watch the Giants take on Okapi Aalstar.

Looking only at the scores at the end of each period really doesn’t tell the whole story of this game. At the end of the first the teams were level on 22 and by the end of the second it was 42 for the Giants and 44 for Aalstar.

I don’t think the game felt that close in the first half. The Giants seemed to take their time to warm up in the game. Their offence seemed good to start the game but it wasn’t getting them any points and they weren’t strong enough at going for rebounds at either end of the court.

Aalstar had some poor moments as well but based on team performances I was surprised that the score was so close at half time.

Coach Roel Moors clearly said something effective at the half time break as the Giants came out much stronger, with much more energy. It was almost like watching a different team.

Aalstar hit 5 team fouls before 4 minutes had gone in the third quarter, this was surprising given that they has started the third in the lead. Fouling so much was not helping them to maintain their lead and the third period ended Giants 71 Aalstar 57.

The forth quarter started slow with both teams taking time to get new points on the board; almost 2 minutes of play passed before the first points of the quarter were scored.

It was the Giants turn to get in to foul trouble, a strange move given that they were in the lead. This didn’t affect them too much though.

A strange thing happened towards the end of the game. With 39.4 seconds on the clock the Giants called a time out. They were 21 points in the lead at this point. I have no idea what the purpose of the time out was. If anyone has any suggestions I would be interested to hear them.

Final score Antwerp Giants 93 Okapi Aalstar 70

Overall it was a strange game with periods of time where neither team played at if they wanted a win; and both teams allowing themselves to get into foul trouble at odd times.