Singapore Addict: December 2009

Singapore Slingers VS Thailand Tigers

Posted by Singapore Addict

It is round 9 of the Asean Basketball League and this will be the first time that Singapore Slingers will be playing against the Thailand Tigers. Based on the pre-game standings the Tigers were the under-dogs with 2 wins/6 loses and the Slingers with 5 wins/ 2 loses. With that being said the Slingers however suffered a painful defeat to the Tigers with a final score of 65-62. Can this game be considered a benchmark for us to gauge Slingers on the next meeting with the Tigers?

Jeffers getting a good elevation and reach at the tip-off.

Slingers offense pillars has always been Kyle Jeffers #31 and Michael Leblanc #35. Closing off either both or one of them would mean that Slingers would be as good as gone in any game. Tigers played a very good strategy of putting their two biggest man on them.

Jeffers fighting for a defensive position with Nwankwo.

Briggs making a pass.

The Tigers placed Chaz Twan Briggs #3 on Leblanc and Ikenna Chukwuemeka Nwankwo #35 on Jeffers. They also instructed their guards to constantly harrass Jeffers on his high post offensive position. This limited Jeffers from double digits points on average to a mere 8 pts for the entire game.

Jeffers being stripped at the high post by Kruatiwa.

Leading to a fast break by Lertmalaiporn.

What happens next if your 2 biggest man which also happens to be your top scorers in your team gets stopped? The most logical way to play it is to give it to your guards and let them run the fast breaks or the quick pull-up jump shots. This would have been particularly effective against the Thailand Tigers as Slingers guards although smaller are much quicker. I am pretty sure that Frank Arsego ran this into play but with 1 major flaw. The guards did not perform! or should i say cannot perform! I will try to refrain myself from generalising and take a look at the Box score of our guards and see what went on there.

Slingers Game Box Score

Name	PTS	FG	3PT	FT	AST	STL	TO	MIN
Wei Jie Desmond Oh	9	3/11	1/5	2/6	0	1	1	16:24
Wei Long Wong	0	0/1	0/1	0/0	1	0	5	12:24
Wei Jian Hong	0	0/0	0/0	0/0	0	0	0	06:14
Michael Wong	6	2/4	1/3	1/2	1	1	0	22:24
Marcus Ng	6	2/13	1/6	1/1	6	2	3	32:18
Al Vergara	6	2/7	0/1	2/2	4	1	2	27:29

Looking at the Slingers box score for the guards, Michael Wong and Al Vergara did well this game as expected as their accurracy has been pretty decent all season. Then there is Wei Jian who only had 6 mins on the court and didnt have a chance to shoot! So whos making the shots? or maybe losing the ball?

Desmond's defensive chase.

I guess Desmond was shooting, shooting terribly. Desmond making only (3/11) field goals and (1/5) 3 pointers within 16mins! That is about 1min per shot and meaning he fired 11 out of the 20 possessions (only scoring 3) that Slingers would have for the 16mins duration. Jaw Dropping.

Marcus is not very far off from Desmond, scoring only (2/13) field goals and (1/6) 3pointers with decent playing time of 32mins. I can see why Coach Frank has Marcus playing major mins due to his ability to apply strong defence on his opponent and to push the ball fast up court when necessary. However after 8 rounds in the league shouldn't there be at least some improvement on his shooting percentage?

Marcus cutting off Lertmalaiporn's drive to the basket.

Both Marcus and Desmond are undoubtably good defensive players but sadly their shooting percentage were not high to begin with. Whether the reason is shot selection or practise, i do hope that they step up their game so that they can carry the Slingers to victory when needed.

Wei Long Looking for an opportunity to pass.

As for the Turnovers it was a disaster for Wong Wei Long. It was totally uncharacteristic of him to have 5 Turnovers in 6mins of play. "It must be one of those days", those days where everything just goes wrong. Again good decision by Coach Frank to take him out quickly.

Lertmalaiporn pre-free throw ritual.

We can all hope that these mishaps will not happen on the next meet with the Thailand Tigers. This Thursday (17 December, 2009) at the National Indoor Stadium. Maybe a nudge by the cheers from the Slingers fans will help motivate them a little more! So shout your lungs out this coming thursday! Join Us at the Indoor Stadium, tickets available at Sistic!

More Pictures at the game