The Namuwongo Blazers fell to the Nairobi City Thunder 62-89 in their opening game at the Elite 16.

Namuwongo came into this tournament with a lot of optimism and opening with a victory against the hosts would have boosted their confidence.

The Blazers started off well and led the game 13-5 after 4 minutes.

At some point, the Thunder built momentum and made a 16-4 run to take a 4-point lead.

In that run, they scored 4 3-point shots but Jimmy Enabu snapped that run with a triple for the Blazers.

Enabu added another triple and all of a sudden,  the Blazers were up 4.

At the end of the quarter, Nam Blazers led the game 25-23 but most of the points came from the 3-point line.

Nairobi City Thunder had buried 5 of their 11 attempts while the Blazers had made 4 of 11 attempts.

It was a slow start to the second quarter as neither team scored in over 2 minutes.

However, James Mooring hit a triple to give the Blazers a 5-point lead.

The Thunder put together a 13-2 run to take a 6-point lead but Namuwongo managed to fight back.

Towards the end of the half, Tonny Drileba hit a deep 3 to tie the game but Lance Robert responded instantly with a triple for the Thunder to send the game, 43-40, into the halftime break.

In the second half, the Thunder took over.

Namuwongo scored a total of 22 points while Thunder scored 46 to see off an easy win.

In the fourth quarter, there was a moment when Tonny Drileba made back-to-back threes and the Blazers looked like they had gathered some steam.

Thunder immediately called a timeout and fizzled out that Blazers momentum.

Namuwongo then mess of everything. Thunder picked 4 offensive rebounds in a row and when Blazers got the ball, they turned it over.

In the final 5 minutes of the game, Nairobi City Thunder completely dominated the Blazers.

They outscored them 16-2 and with about a minute left, Namuwongo surrendered.

Player Stats

Nam Blazers

Jovan James Mooring 15 pts

James Okello 11 pts, 9 reb

Tonny Drileba 9 pts, 4 reb, 2 ast

Nairobi City Thunder

Derrick Mekenye Ogechi 14 pts

Albert Odero 16 pts, 6 reb

Tylor Ongwae 13 pts, 5 reb

Lance Robert 18 pts, 5 reb

One of the biggest problems of the Blazers was the finishing. Even the easy layups, they missed a lot of them.

There were very many moments when they were fouled but you felt that they should have made the basket and gotten an and one.

Jaycson Bereal was very good for them in Dar es Salaam and he needs to show up on Wednesday.

He missed 8 of his 10 field goal attempts and what was very surprising was that he missed 6 of 10 free throws.

Secondly, Jovan Mooring needs to have less time on the ball.

Most times when he was the primary ball handler, he spent so much time with the ball and by the time a move was made, it was too late.

It is no wonder that despite playing just 21 minutes, the Blazers were outscored by 32 when he was on the floor.

He needs to be better.

Namuwongo also needs to rebound better. There were moments were they fumbled the ball and they got punished for it.

The Namuwongo Blazers face Johannesburg Giants next on Wednesday 19th at 18:00 EAT.

If they can win this game and the Thunder defeat the Johannesburg Giants, the Blazers will finish seckn in the pool and advance to the semifinals.