lovewins:


Gabby and Marine are are part of the squad. I agree, we should play the same way we did Australia. No point pivoting from what's working. As long as we stand on business defensively and clean up our offence I think we can win today's game.

Also, Promise Amukamara should not shoot the ball. I'll rather she drive into the paint and get us those free throws.

...okay,have not seen them(France) play yet at this Olympics,might look for their highlights and watch it,incase anyone wants to watch the Nigeria vs Australia match,it is on showmax.

lovewins:


I think I s about setting up your players for Success. Tomi has to set her feet to shoot for her to be effective. We saw that clearly at the Afrobasket. Question is how do we achieve this? Set up plays exactly the same way the Japanese does. You have their guard who drives into the paint and gets a lot of defensive attention which is automatically leaves a shooter open. Doing this should work for Tomi.

...For Tomi to be effective,at this world stage,she do need a lot of help from a real ball carrier like Ezinne, and a couple of extra passes. She just being effective when her feet is set is the real problem. That makes it easy to stop her from being effective. Except,it is a team effort to find her when she is set,it might just be hard for her to get it going at this world stage.. Hopefully,the coaches can see ways to make this work and draw out something for her too..

carbonado:
...For Tomi to be effective,at this world stage,she do need a lot of help from a real ball carrier like Ezinne, and a couple of extra passes. She just being effective when her feet is set is the real problem. That makes it easy to stop her from being effective. Except,it is a team effort to find her when she is set,it might just be hard for her to get it going at this world stage.. Hopefully,the coaches can see ways to make this work and draw out something for her too..

Of course it's something she needs to work on. I'm just suggesting a way to work around it. Get extra defensive attention by driving into the paint which automatically frees up you man. If not Tomi, someone else will be free cause it always works.

lovewins:


Of course it's something she needs to work on. I'm just suggesting a way to work around it. Get extra defensive attention by driving into the paint which automatically frees up you man. If not Tomi, someone else will be free cause it always works.

.

Yeah,we are on the same page....can't wait for the game against France..

The Japanese are such a joy to watch.

What's the time for the France game please??

Queenslander:
What's the time for the France game please??

4:15pm

I want to confess positively that Dtigresses of Nigeria will defeat France. Amen. Yes, we are playing the hosts on their own turf, but we will win. The French will come at us with everything, but I believe Coach Rena has a plan for the game.
Would love to see Ifunanya Okoro get some minutes in the game today. And Elizabeth Balogun might be the dark Knight I was talking about some days ago. Cheers.

It's game time...

The French defense is intense!

End of 1st quarter
France 24-20 Nigeria

France 24
Nigeria 20

Great first quarter. Let's double down on defence and clean those turnovers

PDPGuy:
End of 1st quarter
France 24-20 Nigeria

We just need to work harder in the 2nd quarter. If we could score 20 points in the 1st quarter , we can do better in the 2nd quarter. I remain hopeful.

Bucket for bucket...let's goooo!!!!!!

Elizabeth Balogun has been horrible

Our team suffers when Ezinne stops shooting. I complained about this the last time, and I'm doing so again today. It's unfortunate that the coaching crew is yet to see this very obvious fact.

Let's go Kalu...

What's the score now?

COOL10:
Our team suffers when Ezinne stops shooting. I complained about this the last time, and I'm doing so again today. It's unfortunate that the coaching crew is yet to see this very obvious fact.

It can't just be her though. Others have to rise to the occasion. Elizabeth and Musa so far have been shooting bricks. Amy also has to shoot more.

Okonkwo is doing a goodjob fighting for position on the inside but they are not passing her the ball.

Half time
France 38-31 Nigeria

We are doing too much just for one basket. Move the ball around and find easy buckets

[quote author=lovewins post=131268853]

It can't just be her though. Others have to rise to the occasion. Elizabeth and Musa so far have been shooting bricks. Amy also has to shoot more. [/quote

@lovewins, let's have an analysis of the first half. Thanks.

lovewins:


It can't just be her though. Others have to rise to the occasion. Elizabeth and Musa so far have been shooting bricks. Amy also has to shoot more.

I know that, but Ezinne is the best shooter in that team. When she starts shooting and scoring, others get motivated to do the same. We won the game against Australia because Ezinne started on a strong foot. She scored 17 points in the first half, if I'm not mistaken.


Unfortunately, that aggressive shooting lasted only in the first half and has been missing ever since. I'll be really pissed if I find out that she stopped shooting because the coaching crew told her to.

The ladies need to attempt more 3-point shots, especially as the French pressing has receded to the paint.

PDPGuy:
The ladies need to attempt more 3-point shots, especially as the French pressing has receded to the paint.

I would rather they attack the paint. 3 are hit or miss but the French girls have not proven they can do anything with us on the inside. We just need to score and play great defense to win this game.

[quote author=Redman44 post=131269007][/quote]

We currently trail by 7 points at half time. It could have been worse cause we turned the ball over needlessly in the 1st quarter, but we thankfully cleaned up our defence in the second quarter.

Our challenge like I opined earlier has been our offense. We are shooting 36% from the field compared to France's 54%. The only reason we are this close is because we are out rebounding France giving us extra possessions to leverage on.

We also aren't giving our best shooters open looks. Our worst shooters in this game so far have been Elizabeth Balogun and Musa. Both of them combine for 3-15 FG which is 20%. Guess what? They have taken 50% of our total shots. It means Musa and Elizabeth our worst shooter have shot more than the entire team. That needs to change in the second half.

lovewins:
Elizabeth Balogun has been horrible

Not really. Her shot has not been going but her defense is good.

BascoVanVeli:


Not really. Her shot has not been going but her defense is good.

I agree she's been ok defensively but not great too. She's turned over the ball a couple of times.

40-31

nigeria falling apart

54-39