Maktown Flyers forward rues Al Ahly defeat

Maktown Flyers forward, Jawad Adejoka, has turned his attention to their next game against Club Africain on Friday (today), after suffering a second defeat in the Sahara Conference against Al Ahly on Wednesday, PUNCH Sports Extra reports.

James Butler Jr. was unstoppable, leading the Flyers with 29 points, but this wasn’t enough to prevent the Flyers from losing 89–80 against the Egyptians.

As in their first three games, the Maktown Flyers scored most of their early points from behind the arc.

However, it was only a matter of time before the Egyptian champions tightened their defence, after which the game changed for the Nigerian side, who initially scored all nine of their points from deep.

When Mohamed Khalaf sank a three-pointer to give Al Ahly a 12–11 lead midway through the opening quarter, Maktown never led again, although they remained within striking distance.

In the fourth quarter, Al Ahly stepped up their game to secure the win, outscoring Maktown 19–14.

At times, the game resembled a duel between Butler Jr. and Murphy, whose impressive shooting triggered their teams’ offence.

While Butler Jr. shot 10-for-12 from the floor, including 5-for-5 from deep, Murphy finished with 5-for-10 shooting.

Osayi Osifo did a bit of everything for Al Ahly, shooting 9-for-10 to finish with 20 points, grabbing eight rebounds and protecting the rim with two blocks.

In the end, Al Ahly improved their record to 2–1 with two games left, while Maktown Flyers dropped to 1–2.

The defeat leaves the Flyers fifth in the conference, but Adekoya, who scored 20 points in their opening game, believes they can improve.

“We played well offensively. We need to tidy up a few things on defence. The offence may have faltered slightly in the fourth quarter, but I feel like we showed great grit in this game, and we need to carry that over. We need to put this loss behind us and focus on Club Africain on Friday,” he told the BAL website.

“We need to continue executing well on offence and limiting turnovers. We also need to improve our pick-and-roll defence; if we do that, teams will find it hard to play against us.”

At the end of the group stage, the top four teams from each conference advance to the playoffs in Kigali.

Teams are ranked and seeded by win-loss record, with ties broken by head-to-head results, point differential and points scored.