“I want to play for SK like I play for my national team”
Seoul SK defeated Ulsan Hyundai Mobis 105-76 on Friday at Jamsil Student Gymnasium in the sixth round of the 2023-2024 Korean Basketball Association (KBA) Finals. The fourth-ranked SK improved to 28-18 on the season. They moved within half a game of third-place Changwon LG, who did not play on the night.
Oh Jae-hyun (186 cm, G) played well at point guard with 10 points, five rebounds, seven assists, and one steal in 28 minutes and 50 seconds. He did a good job with his steals and fast breaks instead of his limited three-point shooting.
After the game, Oh said, “After the recent win, the next game was not good. We needed to fix that, and we needed to take every game we could get in order to go higher. I tried to focus on every game. That’s how we were able to play so well from the start,” he said.
“I went to the national team during the international break. I wasn’t used to the players. I didn’t know how the team prepares. Now I have the longest possession of the ball. If I play well, my brothers are saved. I’m the one who can save everyone. I kept thinking about what to do. My brothers are so good. I tried to widen my vision, and when I started to look wider, the other players came alive,” he added.
“(Oh) Jae-hyun has revitalized his passing ability after going to the national team,” SK coach Jeon Hee-chul said before the game. How does Oh Jae-hyun feel about it?
“My passing timing needs to be faster. I feel it a lot during the game. I made two turnovers in this game. I need to eliminate those mistakes. That way, I can improve. When I analyze the video, I look at the timing of my passes. SK has been scoring in the 80s. Recently, they’ve gone up to 100 points. When I passed a tempo faster, my brothers took care of it, and the team atmosphere was revitalized,” he said.
“As coach (Hee-chul) Jeon said, my passing skills improved after I went to the national team. It was a really good experience. Playing with good players, I realized, ‘Basketball can be so easy.’ No matter where 안전놀이터 I pass, it’s an assist. Of course, SK also has a lot of good players. I don’t try to do it alone, I try to use my brothers. It makes it easier for me to play. I try to play for SK like I play for the national team. Recently, the scoring distribution hasn’t been in favor of one player. Everyone is scoring evenly,” he added.
“We lost the EASL Finals in the 2022-2023 season, which was very disappointing. We have to work hard from the semifinals. We must reach the final. If we meet Chiba Jets in the final, we have to stop Yuki Togashi. Not only me, but (Choi) Won-hyuk is also there. I will not spare any fouls, and I will put pressure on him. We’ll stop him even more than we did in the KBL. We will have an advantage in the foreign player battle and the forward battle. We will do our best in the EASL,” Choi concluded the press conference.