Satria Muda vs Slingers: Hero-complex haunts hosts

By Jan Lin/Red Hoops. Photos by Les Tan/Red Hoops in Jakarta

BritAma Arena, Saturday, November 14, 2009 – It was a heart-wrenching 61-59 home defeat for hosts Satria Muda, who had brought to the game everything they had in them, including their egos.

Satria Muda’s head coach Fictor Roring was quick to identify the stumbling block to the victory that was at their fingertips. He revealed: “Towards the last few minutes of the game, the players were playing by themselves and not with each other. This opens up all our passings and defense, [which] is the reason why we lost.”

“It was very, very disappointing how we couldn’t stick together until the end,” said Roring.

Indeed, to lose a 40-minute game after leading for 39:36 minutes is devastating to say the least and the wound cut twice as deep to lose the game in their own den.

Unlike the game in Singapore a fortnight ago where Satria Muda had no answer to the Slingers’ shooting spree of 63% from the field and 60% from beyond the 3-point arc, Satria Muda unleashed an up-tempo game to put good pressure on the Slingers and deny a similar onslaught in Jakarta.

“We were able to stop the Slingers shooters in the beginning of the game. We know they have good shooters and we want to stop them. In fact we’ve reduced their threes to just 3 (20%) in this game,” said Roring.

“But in the closing minutes,” Roring said, revealing the killer blow that floored his team, “the three from Slinger number 10 (Hong Wei Jian) killed us. He killed us, he had two big shots.”

24-year-old local Slinger Hong Wei Jian contributed eight points in this game with five scored during crunch time, particularly the two-pointer in the final 24 seconds of the game that put the Slingers ahead for the first time.

Slingers’ assistant coach Neo Beng Siang explained the late show brought on by the high-energy duo of Hong Wei Jian and Marcus Ng.

Coach Neo said: “They were able to find their own confidence as they weren’t able to get to the basket in the first half. For Marcus in the second half, after a good stagger screen, he curled in, one-two step right to the hole and got himself a basket and his confidence built up from there. For Wei Jian, when we were ten points down at the end, we were chasing points, he was open and he took the shot, he got it and that gave him the confidence for the second one.”

He believes that Satria Muda’s American import Alexander Hartman missing the crucial free throws in the dying seconds when his team was 59-58 up was a turning point, but Roring remained critical of his side’s crumbling team play especially in the closing stages of the game.

“I think some players just want to be a hero! I don’t like that,” Roring said matter-of-factly. “We lost a ten-point lead in the last three minutes today, but I believe we have a very big chance the next time we play Slingers here in December.”

Roring stressed: “The important thing now is to train as a team. It’s a big issue for us, we are not yet blended together. The Slingers are just a very good team, with very good coach, very good imports. They can blend with the local players and that is our problem.”

Despite having the upper hand, the Slingers, who ended their morning training session with head coach Frank Arsego reminding them that “we are in charge of our destiny”, took more than three quarters to find the confidence they needed to be in charge.

“We’ve expected more from our boys actually. We had a bad first half with twelve turnovers but I’m pleased that we only had two in the second half as it made us more confident and run the system well,” coach Neo said. “From then on they protected the ball well, drove to the hole, then everyone just rocked up.”

Categories: Satria Muda , Slingers