Slingers Took Game 1 of the Playoff Series!

Singapore Slingers - won their game 1 of the 3 game playoff series at home this evening at the Singapore indoor Stadium. Being the 2nd seat of ABL regular season, the Slingers got a home game advantage against the 3rd seat - Satria Muda.

Slingers finishes the game at 87-68.

The intensity of the game during the playoffs was pretty different comparing to those of the normal season. Slingers played good defense today and the FG% was pretty good for both teams as well. This match was really good as it was a real close game until the 4th Qtr.

With this home game advantage in hand I am pretty confident to say the Slingers will be able to make it into the finals.

GO SLINGERS !

Article from official site : ABL NEWS.

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The Final 40 Mins...

Singapore Slingers - The Singapore Basketball Team of Asean Basketball League (ABL) clinch an important victory over the KL Dragons in the Final 40mins of their ABL Regular Season. 92 - 74; revenge is always sweet.

It was the Slingers 1st home lost of the season the last time the KL Dragons visited the indoor stadium and let's keep it the last as well.

"See you at the playoffs" was what I heard when I step into the stadium before the tipoff. The Slingers look all ready as they were doing their warm up. The tempo of the game was in high intensity right for the moment when Kyle Jeffers won the tip off and giving the 1st possession to Marcus Ng.

The defense was well played and the shooting went well. The Slingers boy looks confident and was ready to take the shoot where ever they were standing and that was how the Slingers look like when I watch them play for the 1st time. The team took sinks 10 3pts in total. 4 of them provided by stats leader Leblanc who finishes with a double double of 26 pts and 11 rebound. Al Vergara was 3/3 from beyond the arch and finishes with 17 pts. Both Wei Jian and Marcus did a few spectacular moves and both finishes the game with 12 and 11 pts respectively.

Personally I like it when the slingers play more shooting games rather than paint. They are not the biggest in the league and they are not as aggressive as well. So playing paint is not doing them good, although they draw fouls which put them on the free throw but their FT % ain't the best in the town as well. The Slingers get lots of bad call on them every now and than and it's not just because they are really rowdy but they are too honest kind of player who do not test the ref's limit enough and fouling at the wrong time. Playing dirty is a very important part of winning as well.

And now, let's get ready for the playoffs fans !

Something about the match but not the game...

The fans were shouting "Rudy Sux ! " For god knows what reason..

The Sponsor gave out Slingers Posters as well as free 1 liter of Milk..

The Slingers Fans were sitting right beside the Dragons and the cheering were inconsistent and it feels totally weird.

The KL Dragons did a 5 man for 5 man sub in the 1st qtr. TWICE

The KL Dragons did a 5 man for 5 man sub in the last qtr as well. TWICE

You should come to ABL Matches even if you don't like basketball. The screaming your lungs out part is really fun.

I would really like to buy their Jersey and I will feel proud to wear it out IF the design is a lil better.

Didn't blog much about the progress of the game, check out ABLNEWS or #Singaporeslingers on Twitter if you like to find out more.

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Round 12 - Slingers Vs Partriots

Disclaimer : Apologies if any of the stats and score mention are not accurate as they are blogged base on memory, I didn't go there w a note pad and the stats are yet to be up on ABL's site

Singapore Indoor Stadium - The match ended with Slingers beating the leauge leader at 67 - 59.

The Slingers tie the game with the Patriots at the end of 1st half despite of bad defense and struggling with the offence. The Patriots were given much space in the paint and they were having a good shooting half as well. The biggest lag was 14 pts

As much as I observe I felt that the Slingers should keep the full court press defense down. And the Slingers have the habit of double teaming and leaving opponent all open to shoot at will. And their Offence was pretty sloppy as well, teammates have no prediction of each other's movement and the ball movement was very slow.

Slingers - Marcus and Jeffers's effort on penetration all goes to the drain in the 1st half. Patriots' defense was that tight, but late post up plays by Jeffers help slingers to gun down quite a bit of points.

The Slingers got their first lead for the game only at 3rd Qtr. They played much better defense and they kept their mistake and turnover lower and the crowd was all hype up which I assume the home crowd gave the patriots too much heat. Their good shooting half ended at the 1st half and al the basket hits the rim and nothing else.

I don't have the stats with me but some of the big shots are like Michael Wong's 3 pt made 3sec b4 buzzer went off for 3 Qtr and the pts Steven Khoo made closer to end of 4th Qtr which pull the score apart from the patriots. Steven didn't do much of a spectacular for the last few matches if my memory didn't fail me but he sure did more than what I expect for this game.

Side Note: I remember Wei Jian played pretty well in round 4 ( with 5-8 FG and 3-3 3pts and a total of 13 pts) when they beat the Satria Muda BritAma 96 - 72, but he didn't get to play much in subsequent much which keeps me pondering.

The important of basket ball is really to treasure and make full use of every possession, every turn over is a pain.

I hope to watch better basketball in Singapore and hope there will be more Singaporean Fans too !

P.S : Sorry, no photos and all text, I was busy LIVE updating the match via Twitter yesterday.. hahah

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Singapore Slingers !

After being a basket ball fan for like "n" years, I finally get to watch a LIVE ! basketball game.

Well it's no NBA but it's ABL and it's pretty exciting actually !

Singapore Slingers welcome the Satria Muda Britama - Indonesia.( I know the team name is like a mouthful)



Sorry, no super zoom lens.



no super shuttle speed too !



The match was pretty exciting to watch although Slingers took the early lead and pull the score pretty far apart in early half.





The kids from the half time show. They were really good ! Other than our cheer leaders we had this group of kids coming in to perform and they go as young as 6 years old. They even gave away TV, Wii and stuff during the halftime show !

I was pretty impressed with the speed the Slingers was playing at, the pace was good, very fast on both defense and offense but they do not take fast breaks points which I do not really understand. They played it slow and lots of shooting. Slingers' shooting % was pretty good and I felt both #10 Wei Jian and #21 Marcus played pretty well. They look tiny on the court but they were like 180cm and 193cm respectively.

Slingers fans had a good time boo-ing at #8 of Satria - Harman Alexander from Oregon USA. He is very aggressive but he do not play as a team and he plays very rough imo. And we were like boo-ing at all his FT and comments like " Eh Don't Cry ah ! " came out of my mouth when he was arguing with the referee at different points of the game.

The referee ain't the best I must say, there was a few occasions of traveling, pushing and illegal screen but it was all uncalled. It's never easy to be a good referee but a good game seriously need very good referee ! And there was one 8sec half court call at the 7th secs, we had a fun time boo-ing him ! haha

But the major turn off was the commentator i guess, being expose to NBA commentator he is like no where close to a commentator, if i'm not wrong he look like a showhost from the IT show.. *slapforehead

Anyway, Slinger took the game without any sweat.



24 points win ! Mr. Botak Jones promise us on 1% discount for every point slinger win over the satria and being a man of his words, he gave us a 20% discount and yes that was my dinner ! yum yum !





Two of my favorite pics !

And yes that's all ! Hope I can go for more of their games. Can I get box seat ticket next ?

Mr.Smith, wanna watch live NBA leh !!

"And now ladies and gentlemen, that's the ugly truth"

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