Basketball in Africa

Now that the first round is done and dusted, the real fight begins. Winners move on and get a shot at being crowned champions and the losers go home. While it is a debut season for City Oilers are and they here for the first time, Dmak Power have been here on numerous occasions.

“They are a good team, they were not just carried to here. Expect good basketball in the series with Power coming out victorious” a confident Isaac Afidra told Kawowo Sports.
The five time champions have had just two days off, the new comers have had nearly a week off, following their blow out of undermanned KIU Titans last Wednesday. May be that won’t matter not even the team profiles (which are a complete mismatch) will but defense may.

Power do not necessarily enjoy defending to win games, they rather score more than their opponents. While the stats suggest Power had the worst defense through the regular season and post season of four teams in the playoff semi finals, they have lost the fewest number of games and Afidra doesn’t agree with the notion that Power can’t defend. “That is what you see but it is not what we do” he says.

Why Power will win:
Dmark Power has got a plethora of scorers especially on the back court. With the exception of two or three players, the rest of roster will give you at least 8 points on a normal night. Power’s bench contributed at least 27 points in each game of the first round. While Power’s bench is productive, City Oilers secondary points are hard to come by outside of the starters. The Oilers bench contributed a combined 19 points in its encounters with KIU.
Why Oilers may win:
Kami Kabange’s post season will likely take a real positive twist especially against Micheal Kojo and David Kiberu who are not the best of man-to-man defenders. They won’t make it as difficult as KIU did for Kami to pull off his midranges jumper. The big man is crafty – not to mention he is the best mid-range-shooting big in the league. Jimmy Enabu is back to scoring, attempting more shots, attacking the basket more and averaging 19 points in the post season. Power is vulnerable when playing a team that converts as it slows them down and forces then into half court plays which is not their comfort zone and City Oilers can make the points and have quite a defense that will trouble Power’s running guards.
Fun match-ups:
Isaac Afidra – Arou Ramadhan
On his day, Afidra is a prolific inside scorer. We saw a bit of that when Power beat UCU Canons in the first round when he dropped 29 points and if he takes the game at the post their match up may turn out the best in the series. Arou is aggressive, at times crafty and tough and will always look for that turn on the baseline. Inside scoring is all he can do outside of that scoring is limited but once he is rolling the forward is difficult to stop.
Norman Blick – Andrew Opio
Despite his center attributes, Opio is Juruni’s starting small forward the implication is he will be up against Blick. You can nearly be sure Opio’s defensive rebounding will reduce as he tries to pick up a mobile perimeter player in Norman. If Blick turns in a performance that earned him last season’s playoffs MVP, Opio will have his hands full with Norman to do anything else.
Prediction: Dmark Power in 5. City Oilers will stretch Power to limits but Power has been here has done it!