Tamil Nadu capped off a winning streak at the National Basketball Championships by beating Punjab 87-69 in the final to clinch their 10th senior national title on Sunday night in Chennai.
Tamil Nadu captain Muin Bek Hafeez, who was one of two India internationals in the team alongside center Arvind Annadurai, was delighted with the team’s performance throughout the tournament more than winning the title.
“Tamil Nadu had a winning streak, and there were wins by huge margins. We had the biggest net point difference,” the 26-year-old told The Bridge.
“We managed to maintain our streak with a lot of team effort. All the big teams like Punjab and Services lost games, it was quite unpredictable this time,” he said.
Regarding the performance of the two Arvinds in the TN team, he said, “Bada wala Arvind (Arvind Annadurai) showed his international experience. Chota wala Arvind (Arvind Kumar) is still young, is very aggressive in our defense.”
With the advent of 3×3 basketball in India, much of the discussion surrounding the game has focused on how this new format could change the game here. Does Muin Bek agree that 3×3 will harm the existing 5×5 ecosystem?
“No, nothing like that. If you see cricket, when the IPL appeared, the quality of ODIs first went down, but it got better again. 3×3 is the IPL of basketball, it’s is the fastest game, 10-minute games with 21 points to score,” he said.
Muin Bek is a regular for Team India and the Men in Blue’s newest three-point sniper. He shone in the Asian Cup qualifiers last year, scoring 12.7 points per game on 44% shooting from three.
Players like him, Princepal Singh, Pranav Prince and Sahaij Sekhon are expected to be the future of the national team in the coming years.
“After CWG 2018, Coach Matic came and changed the style of the Indian basketball team. We usually didn’t play in a system, we depended on fast breaks before.”
Coach Matic had earlier said that one of the main problems for teams at the national championship was the teams’ low level of defensive effort – as seen by high scores.
“The game has changed overall. Players now tend to take three-pointers, even 7-footers take three-pointers. It used to be an inside game. It’s not like he’s taking threes. there was no defensive effort, look how well Services defended against Punjab,” he said.
