Friday, October 7
*JKL Lady Dolphins Vs UCU Lady Canons – 7pm (3-1)
*Nam Blazers Vs City Oilers – 9pm (1-3)
City Oilers and JKL Lady Dolphins will be crowned National Basketball League champions if they win their respective game fives on Friday at Lugogo.
Both sides lead their respective best of seven finals series 3-1 and another win on Friday will make Game six (Sunday) and seven (Wednesday) will make them irrelevant.
Oilers are seven-time defending champions while JKL have won the Ladies crown for the last two seasons (2018 and 2019).
Oilers beat Nam Blazers 77-74 in a closely contested Game four last Wednesday with Luak Ruai top scoring for Mandy Juruni’s side.
And it now looks like a mission impossible for Nam Blazers who promised a lot after topping the log in the regular season.
All the games have been close without doubt, and Blazers have looked to be in control actually in most of these, only to be hard done by a couple of poor decisions during crucial times.
And when you cannot finish off games especially at this stage, the result will always be cruel.
In game four, they led by five points at one stage but couldn’t get that killer punch in a match they out-rebounded Oilers 50-39.
Their biggest undoing has been their bench that notably managed just nine points against Oilers’ 39 in the previous match.
Given the previous record, it was going to be a tough finals series for Nam Blazers who were making their debut not only at this stage but in the league.
But they were banking on quality across the whole roster to spring up a surprise.
The series is not done yet on paper in case they come out strong and win game five on Friday, but this Oilers team have been in such situations before and will still remain favourites to take their record extending eighth title.
Probable Starting Fives
Nam Blazers – Chris Omanye, Paul Odong, David Dikong Deng, Amisi Saidi, Ariel Okall
City Oilers – Jimmy Enabu, Tonny Drilleba, Luak Ruai, Francis Azolibe, James Okello
