KL Dragons: “Slingers will have to do their job and we will do ours.”

Story by Jan Lin/Red Hoops in Kuala Lumpur

With the Philippine Patriots, Satria Muda and Singapore Slingers securing their playoff spots, the battle for the last playoff ticket between the Brunei Barracudas and KL Dragons has hogged the ABL limelight and will continue to do so should the Brunei Barracudas lose to the Singapore Slingers today.

“If the Barracudas beat Slingers, it’s over for us,” said KL Dragons head coach Goh Cheng Huat. “If Slingers are committed and the coach wants to go all out like what they’ve done against us, I think the Slingers stand a good chance to win the game.”

“Brunei doesn’t have the depth,” coach Goh said matter-of-factly. “If Slingers go full-court press, and if they just can keep pushing them above half-court then Brunei will definitely be in trouble with Slingers’ tough defense and aggressive play.”

Despite having arguably the most valuable ASEAN imports, the Barracudas have struggled with depth all season playing with a 6 or 7-man rotation only.

“Brunei’s point guard may be fit but he won’t last all 4 periods on his own,” said coach Goh, “but if Slingers allow Barracudas to come in and mess up, then they will be disadvantaged because Barracudas have Camaso and all the tall guys so they can easily take one-on-one.”

He continued: “But if Slingers can push them high, let them use the clock then set-up the offense, when Barracudas are late, they will mess up their offense and Slingers will keep the advantage this way.”

That said, Slingers will be coming off a sour away defeat against the Dragons, who had outclassed them 78-71 last weekend.

“Against us, they played all out but the game wasn’t in their hands – they were missing all the shots which was costly,” said coach Goh.

Although the Slingers had recovered from a mid-season slump to secure back-to-back home victories over the Patriots and Dragons in a week, they had no answer to the Dragons’ fiery home display a week later.

“This game was almost the same with the one in Singapore last week except it went the other way,” shared coach Goh. “Michael LeBlanc was hitting all the three-points in Singapore that cost us. When a team starts hitting all the outside shots, there’s not much we can do.”

The Dragons attempted twice as many threes as the Slingers did in Kuala Lumpur. The three-pointers contributed to 42% of the hosts’ total score while the Slingers had only 15% from three-point range. Dragons’ 21-year-old top scorer Loh Shee Fai had four treys to his name and finished with 17 points.

Coach Goh shared: “With these threes, I would attribute it to home court advantage. But Shee Fai is a real shooter. He was the top 3-point shooter at last year’s MIBC (Malaysian International Basketball Championship) – hitting the threes has always been his strength.”

Besides exploiting Shee Fai’s strength, coach Goh also unleashed his secret weapon in John Ng, who may have scored only four points all season long but was selected to start for the home team last weekend.

“I started John Ng because he has been defending LeBlanc previously in our local basketball league so I wanted to see how John would tackle him and John could also shoot from outside so it’s good to start him,” revealed coach Goh.

The gamble turned into a master stroke when Slingers top scoring machine Michael LeBlanc was confined to a miserable three points with only two field goals at half-time.

“My other options were Hugnatan or Li Wei or maybe Way Tek,” coach Goh added, “but they are not as consistent nor as experienced. So I gave John a shot and he had a great game.”

Despite the seething pressure piling on the Dragons to perform at home following the surprise Barracudas victory over Satria Muda the day before, coach Goh conceded that the pressure to perform was more for the sake of the Dragons’ die-hards than for the playoffs.

“Actually after we lost the game to Slingers in Singapore, we know that our chances to the playoffs was very slim and we can’t do anything much but because of our fans, we need to perform in the last two games and hopefully win it at home for our fans,” said coach Goh.

The Dragons’ den in Kuala Lumpur’s MABA stadium registered a full-house attendance on what could have been the day of their final home game. The support was so overwhelming that late-arriving fans had to be turned away as the stadium reached its maximum capacity.

“I told my players not to think of the playoffs but of course I can’t prevent them from thinking,” coach Goh said, “but I told them the more you think of the playoffs the more disappointed you are. We have done our part and we didn’t win when we needed to, we can’t blame anyone.”

So the odds may be against them, but all is not yet lost for the Dragons. If Barracudas were to suffer back-to-back defeats against the Slingers and league leaders Patriots, and if the Malaysian side then beat Satria Muda in Jakarta this Saturday, the Dragons will qualify.

“First, Slingers will have to do their job and we will do ours. We will need Slingers to do us a favour!” coach Goh concluded with a hearty laugh.

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Categories: Barracudas , Dragons , Slingers