Last night at the Lugogo Arena, 9-man City Oilers went back on top of the best of five semi finals series with Warriors, off a 67:60 game three dub. Oilers with one more win in this series could be in their ninth consecutive final in their nine years of existence including six previous NBL finals (If 6-Peat is a thing) since 2013, A Division One final in 2012 and a D-League final in 2011. Such dominance is solely the reserve of the greatest Ugandan sports franchise of the decade.
As if extracting from the famous Art of War by the General Sun Tzu, do the Oilers have an incredible knowledge of themselves and as much a knowledge of their opponent? When they lost at YMCA on Monday night, were they simply choosing the ground they want to fight on? About last night, we can always compare a ball game approach to a letter or legal argument where you have the introductory statement, the body, and your closing argument. Largely, the Q1 would be the introduction where you study what your opponent is doing vis-a-vis what you’re doing. Q2 and Q3 would then be the body of your argument where you seek to assert your strategy and Q4 your closing statement. In close games like last night’s, Warriors are found lacking in closing arguments.
A case in point from last night; Jonathan Kambala visibly aggravated his ankle injury with 3:50 to play in Q3, you could see he was in a lot of pain, but you question Coach Ron Mutebi’s insistence to re-introduce him in the game at clutch time with the game very close (Oilers up 2 pts, 58:56 with 3:31 to play in Q4). The Oilers exploited this loophole blowing right past him twice and getting him to commit a critical turnover that led to a quick bucket. Within a minute and a half of this judgement, Oilers had gone up 6 points. With the Warriors flag up against an experienced side, there was little left to salvage.
Game three had 3 double doubles worth calling out. Said Amisi a.k.a Carmelo was having his game of the season, a whopping 26 points and 10 rebs on 11 of 16 shooting. Stanley Mugerwa had a double double of 10 points and 10 Rebs.
Oilers’s Forward Okello James had the Man-of-the-match performance spotting a double double of 19 points and 11 Rebs. Tony Drileba was one rebound short of a double double with 17 points and 9 rebs while Laundry Ndikumana was 2 points short with a whopping 18 Rebs and 8 points. Jimmy Enabu and Ben Komakech combined for 18 points with Ben Komakech scoring 11 points.
So you may wonder, City Oilers called out for their short-handedness due to the injuries of Stephen Omony, Francis Azolibe and Jonathan Egau, how are they even on top? And I say, Oilers are playing Chess and Warriors in this case are playing checkers! You see, Chess derives most of its complexity through differentiated pieces; with checkers the complexity comes from the interaction between pieces. The result is a series of elegant graph problems where the viable paths change with each move of your opponent.
Another thing is, checkers is obviously played at a much higher level than chess because it is less complex. Therefore, your margin for error in a checker game is a lot less than what it is in a chess game. You make an obvious losing move against a high level master player in checkers and it is just about over.
I’m simply stating that both teams are playing on the same board/court but perhaps they’re playing different games with different stakes.
brian@basketball256.net | Twitter: @Cucubrian
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