KCC, which has changed with spring, will clash with wire-to-wire winner DB in the semifinal PO.
Stars' team Busan KCC and regular league champion Wonju DB will start a fierce battle to advance to the championship game.
KCC and DB will play the first round of the 2023-24 Cheonggwan Professional Basketball semifinal playoff (PO·3 of 5 games) at Wonju Stadium in Gangwon-do at 7 p.m. on the 15th.
KCC, whose FA recruit Choi Jun-yong and retired Song Kyo-chang joined the former Heo Woong, Lee Seung-hyun, and Ra Gun-ah, was the top contender for this season's championship. People around him called KCC, a team of superstars, a 'super team.'
Expectations were high, but the regular season was not satisfactory. Choi Jun-yong, Song Kyo-chang, and Jung Chang-young were injured one after another, and the batters failed to operate properly. Also, I often saw that the existing players and the new players did not work together.
KCC finished fifth in the regular season with 30 wins and 24 losses. It improved from ninth in the 2021-11 season and sixth in the 2022-23 season, but fell far short of pre-season expectations.
Director Jeon Chang-jin bowed his head and said, "It's a shabby fifth place."
However, KCC changed dramatically in the postseason. In the sixth-round PO, they won their third straight game, showing off their overwhelming power and no injuries against the Seoul SK.
KCC won all three games by more than double digits, especially in the 2nd and 3rd games, by more than 20 points.
Now KCC's attention is on the DB.
KCC met DB six times this season and fell behind with one win and five losses. However, as the season progresses, the performance tends to improve, a tight match is expected. Of the five games that KCC lost, two games were only two to three points apart.
KCC, which has been strong recently, has many players to lean on, including Heo Woong, Choi Jun-yong, Song Kyo-chang, Ra Gun-ah, and Alize DeShawn Johnson. If Lee Seung-hyun, who has not yet improved his performance, survives, it can put more pressure on the DB.
If KCC is a team that shook off its early slump and gradually improved its performance, DB is a team that has dominated since the beginning of the season and won the "Wire to Wire" title with 41 wins and 13 losses.
He may be lagging behind KCC, which is ranked in the top five in terms of his name, but he is not inferior to his capability at all. The team that swept major awards at the regular league awards ceremony was DB.
There are many winners such as foreign player MVP (MVP) Didrick Lawson, domestic player MVP Ethan Albano, best five Kang Sang-jae, Sixman Award winner Park In-woong, and director award winner Kim Joo-sung.
DB, which confirmed early wins in 48 of 54 games, is well ahead of KCC in physical strength, skipping to the sixth round PO.
There are concerns about the feeling of the game, but I am determined to show off the glory of the regular season winning team.
It remains to be seen whether DB, which ranks first in the regular league (89.9 points), has a success rate of two-point shots (57.0%), and a success rate of three-point shots (37.5%), can quell KCC's PO storm.