The Johannesburg Giants suffered a major bout of stage fright on what should have been a grand opening of the Basketball Africa League (BAL) on Friday and were left pondering how to bounce back from a 100-70 defeat to Dar City of Tanzania.
Despite rowdy support from a reasonably sized crowd at the Sunbet Arena in Tshwane, the Giants failed to fire, with the young playing group seemingly overwhelmed by the occasion.
“The guys have to calm down; the composure has to come,” said captain Pieter Prinsloo, who scored seven points.
“I hope with some of the guys it’s a one-night thing. They saw the lights for the first time; they saw the speed. Only a few guys have played BAL, and there were just too many mistakes.”
Prinsloo and the Giants’ head coach, Florsheim Ngwenya, bemoaned an opening half in which their team gave away possession 13 times to a fired-up Dar City side for whom American import Nisra Zouzoua led the way with a game-high 35 points, which included eight three-point shots.
“They had multiple plays where they ran the same thing; they got through and got easy lay-ups in the paint.
They were hot from the get go, but we let them get into rhythm, and after that it becomes hard to stop a team,” said Prinsloo.
Ngwenya bemoaned the amount of easy shots allowed from all angles and distances.
“We didn’t play with intensity on defence. If a guy [Zouzoua] can shoot seven threes, then surely, by the third quarter, that is the guy who is not allowed to touch the ball.”
Not much went right for the Giants, who trailed by 19 points after the first quarter and 27 at halftime.
There was some improvement in the second half, but by then the City players had lowered their intensity, as they looked ahead to their next match on Saturday afternoon against Nairobi.
The big-name former NBA veteran Hasheem Thabeet, who scored just four points but was a menace on defence, was benched for most of the final quarter and was “high-fiving” a small group of Tanzanian fans while joining in singing “Happy Birthday” to some in the crowd.
Ngwenya said the Giants players would go back to the drawing board to isolate their errors, but the main message would be to increase their work rate and intensity.
“Nothing is broken; it’s the first game. You look at top leagues around the world; look at the NBA. Guys lose their first game in the playoffs, and they win their next game.
“It’s about how we pick ourselves up and bring that intensity in the next one.”
That next one is on Sunday, against Nairobi City Thunder.
In Friday’s other match on the first day of the Kalahari Conference, the defending champions Al-Ahly of Libya went down 103-95 to the Rwandan team, the Tigers.
TimesLIVE
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