The first game after the holiday break was against Smokkelhoek H1, which is usually composed of shorter yet physically stronger players. Considering that Tantalus only had just a single practice as a team after the break, instead of focusing on their conventional half-court offense, they pushed the tempo very high early in the game and had a 27-0 lead mostly with fastbreak points in the first 8 minutes of quarter 1. In order to prevent the dominance of Tantalus in the painted area, Smokkelhoek has switched to zone defense in the 2nd quarter which disrupted the Tantalus offense a bit. With the fatigue coming into effect after the early offensive explosion, Tantalus slacked on defense too which led Smokkelhoek to find some rhythm on offense. Following some small adjustments against the zone, Tantalus started to find open players on offense better in the 3rd quarter and again by pushing the tempo higher, they managed to have a 38 point lead towards the end of the quarter. Due to the comfort of the significant lead, Tantalus did not take care of the ball very properly in the last quarter which allowed Smokkelhoek to close the gap to 22 points. Yet, the team managed to hold on to a 69-42 win, which was more of a conditioning practice for the team against a more serious opponent next week.

• text: Goksan Isil