Heo Hoon, who scored 92 points and 21 assists after playing 120 minutes in 3 professional basketball championships
Currently, the average score of the championship match is 10th in history…№1 among domestic players
Suwon KT’s ace Huh Hoon is on fire every day in the professional basketball championship match against Busan KCC.
KT, led by Heo Hoon, lost 90–96 to KCC in Game 4 of the 2023–2024 professional basketball championship game four wins out of seven at Sajik Gymnasium in Busan on the 3rd.
Although KT is on the verge of being runner-up with its third loss one win, Heo Hoon always overwhelms the ‘Super Team’ KCC players.
Hur played full time in all of the second, third and fourth games. He played 120 minutes in three games. He didn’t take even one second off.
He said he missed training and was treated at a hospital due to a cold, so he poured out 33 points, including 3 points and 5 shots, in the fourth game.
Following the third game in which he scored 37 points, he scored more than 30 points in two consecutive games.
Excluding the first leg, which is somewhat sluggish with 12 points, his performance has been steady in the last three games.
In the second, third and fourth games, Heo Hoon scored 92 points and delivered 21 assists.
He has an average of 30.7 points and 7 assists. His average is 26 points and 6.3 assists in all four championship games.
Heo Hoon’s average score in the championship game ranks 10th in the history of professional basketball, which was launched in 1997 in both foreign and domestic players.
In terms of Korean players, Kim Young-man, former coach of Wonju DB who played in the professional basketball league, ranks second with 25.6 points, while Kim Joo-sung, coach of the DB, ranks third with 25.2 points in the 2007–2008 season.
The record of Game 3 37 points is second after former coach Kim Young-man 41 points in the score category of the previous Korean champion, and the record of Game 4 33 points is seventh.
Father Huh Jae, former representative of Goyang Day One, who was called the “Basketball President,” scored the most points in a championship game with 30 points, which is lower than his son Huh Hoon.
Heo’s average score in the 1997–1998 season, when he was selected as the MVP in recognition of his outstanding performance despite his team’s runner-up finish, is also lower than Heo Hoon’s.
At that time, former CEO Huh averaged 23 points and 6.4 assists in seven games for Busan Kia Enterprise, and left his name in professional basketball history as an unprecedented “second-place MVP” in recognition of his injury fighting spirit.
The average score is lower than Heo Hoon’s current record, and the assist is slightly higher.
With the champion drawing attention with the “Huh’s brother match” as his brother Huh Woong played for KCC, former representative Huh also watched Huh Hoon’s performance at the scene with joy.
In this championship match, KCC, which has a large number of national team players, was expected to dominate.
However, he did not easily fall behind KCC, as he engaged in a neck-and-neck race with KT by one goal until the last minute of Game 3 and 4. KCC is agonizing over tying Heo Hoon’s performance.
At the media day before the championship, KCC seemed to be taking measures to curb the scoring of other players except Heo Hoon, with coach Jeon Chang-jin openly saying, “There is no player to stop Heo Hoon. I will ask him to score 50 points alone.”
However, when he almost gave up the game while allowing 37 points in the third game, he had no choice but to clean up his defense against Heo Hoon ahead of the fourth game.
In order to prevent Heo Hoon’s long-term mid-range shot, he drove toward the end line and ordered an active help defense, and in the match, forward Song Kyo-chang, not Lee Ho-hyun and Calvin Jeffrey Epistola, was assigned as a dedicated defense.
If Song Kyo-chang, who is more than 2 meters, goes out to the outside to block Heo Hoon, KCC’s height will be lowered and the forward defense will be loose.
Knowing this, the former coach referred to Song Kyo-chang as a tactic to use it for “emergency situations,” but at the end of the game, he eventually gave Song Kyo-chang to Heo Hoon.
Referring to Heo Hoon, Choi also said, “If you do that, it will spread,” but added, “I heard he didn’t come to training because he was sick after getting an IV, but I think he’s acting now. He always gets tricked.”
In order for kt to reverse the flow of the championship match, which is sharply inclined toward KCC with one win and three losses, players other than Heo Hoon need to make an effort.
In particular, as the series continues, the active appearance in offense and defense disappears from Bath, which forms a one-two punch with Heo Hoon, raising concerns about the kt coaching staff.
Bath, which exploded 36 points in the second game and gave KT a victory, dropped its score to 20 points and 23 points in the third and fourth games.
In these two games, Bath’s field goal success rate also fell to 30%.
