Busan KCC “all-around forward” Choi Jun-yong is confident of advancing to the championship game.
Choi Jun-yong scored 25 points to lead his team to a 102-90 victory at home against Wonju DB in the third round of the best-of-five (PO-5) playoffs of the 2023-2024 Korean Basketball Association (KBA) quarterfinals at Sajik Gymnasium in Busan on Monday.
The highlight of the game was when he scored seven points, including one three-pointer, with 1:28 left in the third quarter when his team was up by six points, and ended the third quarter with an 83-70 lead.
KCC head coach Jeon Chang-jin said in a postgame interview, “We had a relatively easy game because of our momentary explosion in the third quarter.”
Choi Jun-yong said, “It feels good to win at home,” and expressed his determination to prepare for the fourth game as if it were the last game of his life.
In particular, he got into a nervous tangle with DB ‘ace’ Dedrick Lawson at the end of the first quarter.
After video review, Choi was flagged for a common foul and Lawson was called for an unsportsmanlike foul for nervously throwing the ball away.
When asked if he spoke to Lawson after the game, Choi said, “I didn’t,” and cut him off, saying, “I’ll talk to him after the series.”
“Our whole team was trying to stop him, so I understand that he got irritated and got rough,” Choi said, “but that doesn’t mean I can’t back down, so I have to be rougher, too.”
“I wasn’t feeling well that day, and I was trying to save my teammates, so I didn’t attack as much,” said Choi, who was held to two points in Game 2 two days earlier. “When I reviewed the game, I realized that my lack of points was the reason for the loss, so I tried to be more aggressive today.”
“I just need to do well,” he joked about the fourth game 바카라 on the 21st, “I have to score, rebound, and even ‘not get excited’ about defense.”
“I used to protest a lot and get a lot of technical fouls,” Choi said, “but that doesn’t change anything, so now I use my protest time to think about the next play, and I hope to win the best player award next season.”
With the fifth-place team just one win away from becoming the first team to advance to the championship game, he said, “Actually, fifth place is good because we have players from different teams.” “At the end of the regular season, we said to each other, ‘Let’s go to the playoffs and see what we can do,'” he said, sharing the team’s mood.
Choi Jun-yong asked, “Isn’t there no player who can lose to other teams individually?” “As we win matches, the players’ faith in each other is growing and their performance is getting better,” he said, predicting a “fifth-place team revolt.