The Korean men’s basketball team won a thrilling comeback victory against Japan by one point. Korea, led by Ahn Joon-ho, defeated Japan 85-84 in the first round of the Softbank Cup at Ariake Arena in Tokyo, Japan.
In the FIBA World Rankings, Japan ranked 26th and Korea 50th, respectively. In addition, Korea organized its national team based on young players aged 24 on average, while Japan competed against Japan as one of the best players to advance to the finals of the Paris Olympics, which opens at the end of this month.
However, active U.S. professional basketball and NBA players Rui Hachimura and Utah Watanabe watched the game from the bench. 안전한 카지노사이트
Hachimura and Watanabe were missing, but Japan was expected to be ahead of us in objective power with key players such as Yuki Dogashi and Makoto Hiejima and Josh Hawkinson, a naturalized player. After the start of the game, Japan led 8-0 in the beginning, with “main gun” Hiejima hitting two 3-pointers.
South Korea, which failed to score for about three minutes in the beginning, opened the scoring with Byun Joon-hyung’s three-point shot and ended the first quarter with a relatively tight 15-13.
In the second quarter, Korea, where Lee Jung-hyun’s three-point game was on fire, took the lead in the game and ended the first half with a 46-35 margin.
Korea continued to lead by more than 10 points in the third quarter, but Oh Jae-hyun and Ha Yoon-ki scored back-to-back goals at the end of the quarter to widen the gap to 20 points. Japan’s pursuit was fierce in the fourth quarter.
With four minutes to go, Akira Jacobs’ two three-pointers exploded in succession to pressure the nation 80 to 74, and with 3:41 left before the end, he even scored a three-pointer by Yuki Kawamura to chase by two points. Hawkinson’s under-goal breakthrough resulted in a one-point gap with about three minutes left.
Japan, one point behind, made one of Kawamura’s two free throws due to Oh Jae-hyun’s foul with 48.5 seconds left, and in the ensuing attack, South Korea failed to cross the half-line within 8 seconds, giving Japan the right to attack again.
Kawamura got two free throws again with 36 seconds left, and this time both succeeded, giving Japan a two-point lead.
South Korea tied the game 84-84 with Lee Jung-hyun’s side mid-range shot with 14 seconds left before the end, and Ha Yoon-ki drew Hawkinson’s foul during the rebound with 0.9 seconds left, and Ha Yoon-ki intentionally missed the second pitch after scoring one pitch to secure a dramatic one-point victory.
Lee Jung-hyun was active with 27 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists, including 6 3-pointers, while Ha Yoon-ki, the main character of the winning point, had 15 points and 7 rebounds.