“The next captain will be (Lee) Seung-hyun, and I can’t wait to pass it on.”
Busan KCC cruised to its second straight win and third straight home victory with a 98-85 victory over Seoul Samsung in the sixth round of the 2023-24 Korean Basketball League on Tuesday at Busan Sajik Gymnasium.
KCC’s “salt and light” Jung Chang-young was more than up to the task on both offense and defense, as he finished with four points, six rebounds and six assists. He didn’t score much, but his assists were plentiful and his defense on 스포츠토토 Lee Jung-hyun was outstanding.
Jung said after the match, “Our mood hasn’t been bad lately. I told them to keep the momentum going. Samsung has also been playing well lately, so we told them not to let their guard down regardless of the ranking.” “We are playing an early offense-oriented game and emphasized it. (Kofi) Coburn has slow feet, so we wanted to take advantage of that. It didn’t work out at first, but as we played, it came out well, so we had a good game.”
Jeon is one of the KBL’s leading early offense craftsmen. It was an early offense based on solid defense that gave KCC the top spot in the regular season in 2020-21, and now KCC, while not perfect, is using an early offense to regain the speed and destructiveness they showed in the KBL Cup.
“I had a lot of conversations with the players. Our defense is actually not a weak point. It’s the front line and when (Alize) Johnson is there, you can see it. But if we only focus on defense, we forget about our strengths, so I talked a lot with (Heo) Ungi and said, ‘Let’s take our strengths,'” Jung said.
“We don’t concede many goals. But we emphasized our early offense, our transition game, and pushing fast. We have a lot of players who can run. I think we’re playing to our strengths. Even if we concede, we are excited to run. We’ve been playing more offense and our strengths are slowly coming out,” he added.
Jung Chang-young’s recent individual performances have been good. He is one of the reasons why KCC hasn’t collapsed in the absence of Choi Jun-yong and Song Kyo-chang. In particular, he has scored double-digit points in five of his last six games.
“I’m not a player who has been playing at the top like (Lee) Seung-hyun or other players. Compared to last season, I got less playing time because of (Choi) Joon-yong and (Song) Gyo-chang, but I’m accepting it. I’m going to focus on my role as a sixth man. I’m glad that I’m getting better and better as we approach the playoffs. Now Jun Yong-i and Kyo Chang-i have joined the team and we need to create synergy. It’s something that everyone can help with.”
Meanwhile, as KCC’s captain, Jung Chang-young has the important task of molding the individual players into a ‘one team’. Of course, the current KCC is not living up to its reputation as a ‘super team’. There are plenty of off-field issues. Nevertheless, Jeong sees the positives.
“When I meet players from other teams, they always ask me something. The first thing they ask me is, ‘Are you okay? Actually, I’m fine. But it looks like that from the outside. It’s true that there are many players with strong personalities, but I don’t do anything that crosses the line.” “I’m not good enough as a captain, and the players follow me well. Of course, I tell them to stay focused during the game, but it’s no different than any other captain. The players trust me and follow me. Seung-hyun was also struggling at the beginning of the season, but he had something to say and we talked a lot. I wanted to help him.”
“I think Seung-hyun will be the next captain, and I can’t wait to pass the torch,” Jung smiled.