SK’s spring basketball ends in the quarterfinals after a ‘painkiller fight’ proved too much to overcome

After reaching the championship game for the last two seasons in a row, the spring of SK’s third season under head coach Jeon Hee-chul was short-lived. For the first time since its inception, the club dropped a playoff series to KCC.

Seoul SK lost 77-97 to Busan KCC in Game 3 of the 2023-2024 Korean Basketball Association (KBA) quarterfinals at Busan Sajik Gymnasium on Monday. 텍사스홀덤사이트 SK’s season ended prematurely with a three-game series defeat.

In a cliffhanger, SK fought back with an injury battle. Ahn Young-joon (knee) and Choi Boo-kyung (ankle) were still recovering from injuries sustained in the regular season and the East Asian Super League (EASL), respectively. In addition, Oh Jae-hyun injured his left ankle. He twisted his ankle twice during the second leg and tore one of the three ligaments.

Despite this, Oh traveled with the team to Busan. Immediately after being diagnosed with a torn ligament, he was expected to be ruled out of the series, but he visited the coaching staff the next day on the seventh and expressed his intention to play. “I can’t finish the season like this. I want to play as much as I can.” Oh was determined.

Coach Jeon Hee-chul explained Oh’s physical condition, saying, “He had already injured his ankle ligaments in the first collision. It ruptured in the second collision, but there was little swelling and no bleeding. I wouldn’t have been able to play if the ankle ligaments were torn at once. I was told not to run, but I was walking around the hostel and said, ‘I want to run’. So I had a second opinion, and the medical opinion was that I could run if only one ligament was torn.”

Ahn Young-joon, Choi Bu-kyeong, and Oh Jae-hyun were given painkillers before Game 3, and while the team was determined to extend the series, it was not enough to overcome KCC’s momentum. SK scored 40 points in the second quarter after a 16-21 start and finished the second quarter down 34-61. The 40 points were the most in a single quarter in playoff history. SK’s previous record was 37 points in the first quarter against LG Electronics in Changwon on March 20, 2001, when they were Cheongju SK.

It was time to turn the tide, but it was actually a moment of truth for both teams. While KCC took the court just three minutes after the halftime meeting, SK took a long time to show up. KCC had nothing to complain about, and SK was unable to find any breakthroughs on offense. The eight three-pointers SK surrendered in the second quarter also tied the league record for most in a single quarter.

This was something that head coach Jeon Hee-chul was concerned about before the game. “This is an opponent where we can’t play to our strengths. If you look at their stats, you have to worry about defense first, not offense. That makes it harder for us to attack, and if we worry about their speed, we can’t utilize the floor. KCC is a team that struggles when they shoot around 35 percent from three-point range, and we shot only 25.5 percent until the second game.”

True to Jeon’s word, SK struggled in the third quarter and couldn’t avoid the sweep. Jamil Warney scored 13 points in the third quarter, but it wasn’t enough to turn the tide. That was the end of the season for SK, which had emerged as a powerhouse in the two seasons under head coach Jeon Hee-chul, winning the championship and finishing runner-up.