The KL Dragons and their fans came unto Singapore Slingers home ground and drew first blood, surprising the home crowd by winning 84-74. This was the Slingers first loss at home for the ABL season.

 Jamal Brown giving it to #10 Weijian on a layup.

It was tough trying to get a meaningful post and review about the game as KL Dragons clearly played better. Offensively they played well in the first 3 quarters connecting more than 50% of their shots; defensively they shut down our scoring options. As mentioned before in my earlier posts, #30 Jamal Brown is sorely missed from the Slingers lineup and he did well against the Slingers at home, outscoring Vergara (11 pts), Jeffers (12 pts) and LeBlanc (13 pts) with 14 points. I bet he has a point to prove and he loves the Indoor Stadium! Also performing well is #10 Rudy Lingganay who topped all scores at 21 points.

#30 Brown tight defence on Jeffers all night.

#33 Li Wei and #30 Brown both blocking Jeffers, shutting him down completely.

Let's run through some stats and see where the Slingers have gone wrong.

#10 Weijian scoring an easy 2-hand layup which everyone was hoping for a dunk!

The locals scored 30 of the total points, ~ 40% of the output with Weijian scoring 60% of  the locals and 25% of the team total. Wei Long who just reovered from chicken pox was scoreless with only 3 attempts in 8 minutes of playing time. Now playing time...40 mins from 5 players, that is 200 mins of possible playing time. The locals played 33% combined yet they scored 40% of the points; with Weijian playing 24 mins (12% playing time) yet topping team score of 18 points (1/4 of team points). And looking at the imports who played two-thirds (67%) of playing time, yet scoring only ~60% of total points. Productivity wise, the locals were more efficient producing 0.45 pt/min while imports were doing 0.33 pt/min. So numbers-wise, if the locals had more playing time, we would have scored better.

Comparing to the previous home game against Indo's Satria Muda on 1 Nov, the locals scored 48 points out of 110 mins producing similar 0.44 pt/min while the imports were more efficient at 0.53 pt/min, scoring 48 points from 90 mins. That might have resulted in the win.

Trust an engineer to analyse the game totally based on numbers. But numbers don't lie.

Coach  Frank trying his best to lead the team.

But it doesn't mean much unless the data is used properly during game time, dependent on how the coach watches the game and deal the playing minutes like how George Karl will give Camelo Anthony more playing time once he  noticed the shooting streaks. The 18 Oct game vs Patriots, the locals were doing more defensive work scoring only 0.16 pt/min while the imports scored 0.62 pt/min.

Anyway my pictures will speak for itself as the KL Dragons have more photo opportunities from the better plays, and they had more open space to shoot as we clearly did not guard them tighter.

More reports from Redsports, ABL and Jase.

Next matchup against the KL Dragons is back at the Singapore Indoor Stadium on 11 Jan '10. Will the visiting team repeat the feat or the home team hand the KL Dragons fans a sad trip home?

Will there be similar hardcore Slingers fans visiting the Malaysia capital, Kuala Lumpur to support the team on 17 Jan '10 at the MABA Stadium?

They have flags

And even drums...which the Indoor Stadium did not allow in the facility, otherwise they'll be tearing the house down!

Security crew warning them of flag pole dangers

Perhaps the Slingers management can do what the KL Dragons' management crew did, and help facilitate a trip up north to give Slingers fans a chance to return the favour of pawning the Malaysian crowd. It will be great to see the Slingers owner Bob Turner cheering the team on with Slingers fans! I bet the MABA Stadium will be less strict with fan gears of drums and flag poles. (Slingers management or marketing people should take a cue from the KL Dragons crew, click the above links of the unofficial KL Dragons fan club to see how Slingers fans can be helped similarly)

Our muted fans.