ANTWERP EXECUTED THE GAMEPLAN AND WON (no surprise)

One week before the Belgian Cup Final, I wrote this in-depth analysis: “How Antwerp can break the hegemony of Oostende from the free throw line”. And that’s exactly what happened when Antwerp sealed the win in the Belgian Cup final against Oostende. Of course, free throws are just a number. And a free throw is just 1 point. But I explained how the offensive gameplan of Antwerp should look like and how it could be evaluated on how many times they can step to that foul line.

The Giants played nearly a perfect game for over 30 minutes. In the video below, I show how Antwerp provoked those free throws in the first three quarters of the game. Over the whole season, Oostende averages 0.26 free throws for every field goal attempt and Antwerp only 0.19. In the first 30’ of the game however, the balance between the FT’s was 16-15 in favour of Antwerp, resulting in a comfortable 57-44 lead in the game.

In the last 4 minutes of the game the lead of Antwerp of +19 shrunk to a two-possession game and a final score of 76-70, which should not surprise since the free throw balance in Q4 was 11-2 in favour of Oostende. Below, I also highlight the situations in Q4 where they should have attacked to ice the game on the free throw line.