Slingers take Game 1

In the game of basketball, like Michael Jordan's habit of wearing North Caroline Tarheel shorts beneath his NBA shorts for games, there are trends or traditions which sometimes are observed and avoided at all cost. So after a couple of trends seen this season, I was getting superstitious.

Each time Boston, Nuggets and my team Spartans lost, the Slingers would get beaten. My silly superstitions were recorded here and here.

Therefore on Saturday morning, after Boston lost to Atlanta 100-91 and Nuggets got whipped 101-64 by Oklahoma Thunders... Spartans really need to win our evening game against the #1 team Taman CSC in the Jammers league right now, they have yet to lose and the last team I remembered, that played them lost 38-130. Errr.. I was suppose to rest my injuries but due to a lack of players, I had to play and for at least the first quarter, we fought hard with what little teammates we had, matching them in defense and scores. But their physical play proved too much for us as we lost by 41 points finally but they never reached 100! So, the fears start to set in for the Slingers game on Sunday, but...the outcome:   Was outstanding!

Singapore Slingers 87 - 68 Satria Muda BritAma

This was a big win for us at home with almost a maximum 20% discount off at Botak Jones with your ticket stubs, Desmond Oh had 4 chances at the free throw line in the final minutes to bring the lead frm 18 to 20, but only shot 1 in. But overall it was a great game from our boys. With all the starters scoring double digits, and the locals contributed notably Pathman was perfect from the charity strip 4-4. The boys played tough and appeared to be a better local side than the Indonesians. Hartman and Miller were the only one scoring double digits and shooting off 21 and 18 points respectively; they were also shooting off their mouths with their whines...

A win this Wednesday at Indonesia will seal the finals for the Slingers. Otherwise, we play home next Sunday 7 Feb at same time and same place! Do bring all your friends to support the Slingers!

Jeffers was a monster tonight as I will return soon with more pictures and a full review. For now enjoy this.
 

 Jeffers' great off the board block, which the referee deemed a goal tending.

 

Jeffers with a put back one-hand dunk after a missed layup from Marcus, frightening Hartman! 

In the other ABL semi-finals, the scoreline was a little more scary than ours as both teams try to send out signals. Philippine Patriots 77 - 43 KL Dragons was a vindicated win with a strong signal to their finals opponent, they meant Business (with a capital bold B).Patriots won by 34 points and held the Dragons to a ABL season low of just 43 points. More of the defense Patriots put up over at this review.

Always keep your focus on the court

Behaved really badly on Saturday during our Spartans game. We were totally out of sync and no strategy against a strong shooting team. I pride myself on being very knowledgeable about basketball strategies, having played and watched basketball games for 20 over years now, and the inability to beat this team stumped me. Well we lost by over 30 points as I was uncharacteristically missing every ball and my teammates have seemed to throw in the towel. So I did what I did and behaved badly since I was already sacrificing playing time to allow them to try to do their thing...so why can't I be the ass and do badly instead of being helpless on the sidelines. At least this way, I can blame myself instead of others.

This sums up how I feel when I see my teammates losing focus on the court and throwing out chances or giving away the ball to opponents.

Listen to the commentary, wake up J.R Smith..Nuggets lost 102-100 in this game. So I blame you for the loss. If only it was that easy to shift the blame. :P

Finally a persevered win - Spartans vs VS

Photo courtesy of PK, owner of Jammers league.

I never blogged in detail of my amateur league games before. But for the benefit of many of my teammates who were away, and the fact I only played 4mins with injured wrists and had to focus on coaching or in my own ways strategically managing the team - this is my account of what happened resulting in an 3-point upset 55-52 over last season's #1 team.

Go Spartans! 2-0

With the new kickass Jerseys (check out Jase's website) and new team mate Didier, we are going 2 for 2 and top of the league!! The last time we had this good was during season 5; when we were split into divisions, so better to blog about this as I am confident we will go 3-0 next week!

The last time we beat Askals, when I was playing lar, it's on my b'day in 2006! 51-49, that was my b'day gift! The other recent time was 78-56 on 31st Mar '07.
Here's Saturday's short match report with JR Escobar topping all scores again! His NBA-style reverse foul-in layup was worth even paying to watch our games! So indeed deserving MVP for 2 straigh games averaging 28pts per game! Read the previous game's lengthy report against a very rough opponent Serangoon Boiz.

In other worthless notes, I was only voted twice for MVP - once because all the other players performed too well while I was a guest player, they decided to sympathetically vote me instead. The other being well...unbelievable..go read Manager Jem's super long post on it. And also to add..I managed to pass my IPPT the next morning with the tired aching legs. Thank God!