Dragons beat Satria Muda 70-67 in final push for playoff spot

Story by Jahred Salazar in Jakarta. Photos by Eka Nickmatulhuda.

The BritAma Arena, Jakarta, Saturday, January 23, 2010 – After three attempts, the KL Dragons (KLD) of Malaysia were finally able to beat Indonesia’s Satria Muda BritAma (SMB) 70-67 in the ASEAN Basketball League (ABL).

It was an important win for the Dragons as they climbed to the fourth and final play-off spot, ahead of the Brunei Barracudas, in the league standings.

The starters for SMB were Nakiea Miller, Alex Hartman, Youbel Sondakh, Christian Sitepu and Mario Wuysang, while KLD started with Jamal Brown, Chris Kuete, Rudy Lingganay, Fhadzmir Bandaying and John Ng.

Throughout the game, the imports figured in several one-on-one matchups. Jamal Brown was up against Nakiea Miller while Chris Kuete faced Alex Hartman. Brown and Miller got entangled several times at the low-post and with the taller Miller getting the better of Brown, the latter changed his strategy and started hoisting up three-pointers, but with only 33% of success.

Miller continued to have his way until the Dragons started to double-team him. Hartman and Kuete also ended up guarding each other, and although Kuete was out-scored by Hartman, Kuete quietly delivered impressive numbers, shooting almost 65% with three assists and four steals.

The most exciting periods of the game were during the last five minutes of the first quarter, and the last six minutes of the fourth. The first quarter saw SMB leading throughout, taking advantage while the Dragons were still adjusting and trying to figure out their way around.

Things started to turn around when Guganeswaran Batumalai of KLD made two free throws, which were his only points of the game, with 2:37 remaining in the quarter.

From then on, the Dragons were pretty much in control of the game until the last six minutes of the game when Hartman hit a three-point shot to tie the game at 60, and exciting the home crowd. Brown then answered with his fourth three-pointer of the night and Lingganay made a difficult lay-up in traffic to extend the lead to five at 65-60.

Both teams then couldn’t buy a bucket for almost two minutes until Miller split his free throws, and scored another two points after the shot clock expired on the Dragons possession to cut the Dragon lead to two points.

Another split at the charity stripe by Miller inched them closer by one point, but Lingganay hit a fall-away jumper from around 16 feet near the free-throw line to again extend the lead to three points. But another three-point bomb by Hartman in the following possession tied the game at 67, leading to loud cheers erupting from the home crowd.

After a Dragon timeout, SMB employed a full-court man-to-man pressure defense which resulted in a steal by Amin Prihantono, but he could not hold on to the ball and committed a travelling violation that led to Guganeswaran setting up Loh Shee Fai for a three-point shot with 53 seconds left.

Like a fairytale script, Loh’s only three-pointer of the game turned out to be the game-winning shot after neither team could make a shot in the final minute though Miller did miss a crucial dying seconds shot.

The game could have been won and lost at the free throw line. Although the Dragons only went to the line 11 times, they converted 10 of those into points, while SMB shot 24 free throws but made only 14, a 58% conversion rate.

Before tip-off, Dragons’ coach Goh Cheng Huat emphasized that they needed to concentrate on their defense if they wanted to win the game.

“I’m relieved, but I was not looking beyond this game and was not thinking about the playoffs before the game”, coach Goh remarked after the game.

He added: “If we don’t make it to the playoffs, we can’t blame the other teams’ results, it is also our fault that we didn’t win enough games (to secure a place in the playoffs).”

Satria Muda BritAma Game Box Score

KL Dragons Game Box Score

Categories: Dragons , Satria Muda

Tags: Dragons, Satria Muda.