Singapore Addict

Singapore Slingers VS Thailand Tigers

2009-12-16T01:42:00.000-08:00

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

Referee tip-off practise throw.

Vergara being nudged during a drive.

Thailand Tigers showing some love after a good quarter.

Tiger's Coach discussing plays.

Leblanc's sneakers. God first socks!

Slinger Girls getting excited. Woohoo!

Hartmen from Satria Muda at court side.

Slingers post game group discussion.

Singapore Slingers vs KL Dragons

2009-11-27T02:47:00.000-08:00

#1 Chuan's only points for the match, in a fast break which left the Slingers helpless

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.

Kyle Jeffers getting sandwiched by #10 Rudy and #30 Brown.

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.

#20 Loh scoring an open shot

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?

KL Dragon fans had tee shirts

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)

Dragon fans behind their team bench (can Slingers management facilitate this in Maba stadium?)

Our muted fans.

Singapore Slingers VS Brunei Barracudas

2009-10-15T04:53:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday Singapore Slingers had a big 18 points win over the Brunei Barracudas and ending with 87-69. Being in the audience we all hope that the point difference would narrow down throughout the game. That would have added a factor of uncertainty and somewhat make it more exciting.

However, from a different perspective blowout games show the pure intricacy of basketball at its best. Looking at the plays this game by the Slingers, both defensive and offensive reads from player to coach were excellent. Strategies were also executed with concise precision.

Key factors contribute to the win for the Slingers:

1. Playing Strong Defense

The one that stands out most is the strong defense that Slingers play this game. They pressured the ball in every passing from in the key to the boundaries of the 3 point line. Slingers watched for open lanes and closed them before the Barracudas could pass it off.

2. Spotting the weakness of their opponents

From this particular game it seems that the Barracudas do not have strong ball handlers. The Slingers saw that and brought in their smaller and faster players (Wei Long, Al Vergara, Hong Wei Jian, Michael Wong - interchangeably) for a full court press during the 3rd quarter. Most of the game Jeffers & Lablanc/Pathman would cover down low and the 3 speedy players would be harassing the ball handler + the shooters at the wings.

Major mishaps by the Barracudas ball handlers (all leading to turnovers):

- Pressured into stopping the ball just before the halfway line even with a big man screening for him.

- Stopping right in front of the defender 2 feet from the 3 point line with no option for a pass.

- Not pushing the ball fast through the court and looking for an outlet pass to a big man even when they know the defense was tight on them.

3. Acknowledging the Strengths of their opponents

Base on the previous game that Brunei Barracudas played against the KL Dragons #13 Michael Pilgrim was one of their main offensive force in the paint scoring 22 points. After watching him play I knew for sure that Slingers have to get him fouled out for them to dominate this game. He is a problem for both Jeffers and Leblanc to deal with on their defense. Pilgrim might not be as strong as Jeffers but definitely faster. Pilgrim is also stronger than Leblanc.With that in mind Slingers got him into foul trouble early in the game and fouled him out during the 4th quarter.

Good game by the Singapore Slingers, claiming their win in their first game for ABL (ASEAN Basketball League). For the nicely planned strategy this is for u Frank Arsego (head coach of Slingers):

All battles are won before they are fought. — Sun Tzu (The Art of War)

Can’t wait for this Sunday’s Game where Singapore Slingers VS Philippines Patriots 4pm @ Singapore Indoor Stadium. Come Join Us!! Tickets sales at SISTIC are from $8 - $18 & courtside seats at $50.