Thailand Tigers: “Watch out for Freeman!”

By Jan Lin/Red Hoops

The Thailand Tigers and Brunei Barracudas may not have made it to the ASEAN Basketball League (ABL) playoffs but as the only two teams that have had experienced firsthand the prowess of Philippine Patriots latest American addition Gabriel Freeman, they know best what he is made of.

The Patriots had brought in Freeman to replace Brandon Powell to pull the team out of a sudden slump. The new American import got down to business promptly to emerge as the Patriots’ top scorer and hitting a double-double in both games to seal for his team two crucial victories.

In his maiden game against the Thailand Tigers a fortnight ago, whom the Patriots beat 91-87, Freeman scored 21 points and 14 rebounds in the 30:47 minutes on court. Freeman then had 17 points and 18 rebounds to his name a week later against the Brunei Barracudas.

The 25-year-old Freeman had played for the San Miguel Beermen in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) and led his team to the 2009 PBA Fiesta Conference Finals where they defeated Barangay Ginebra Kings to take the title. Freeman was named the Best Import of the Conference.

“It’s hard to catch up with Freeman,” said Tigers Filipino coach Soonthornpong Mawinthorn. “His individual ability is really great. He can shoot from three, he can drive in and he can defend too. He’s a complete player. The consistency of Freeman is really something, and he can dominate the board. Watch out for Freeman!”

Mawinthorn picked the Philippine Patriots and the Singapore Slingers to meet in the ABL finals but remained undecided which team would lift the inaugural title. He said: “The Slingers will win in terms of team work but the Patriots have better imports and players.”

While the Patriots will host the fourth-placed KL Dragons in the first playoff today, the Slingers will play Indonesia’s Satria Muda. Both hosts hold a 2-1 winning record over the visiting teams in the regular season. Of the four teams, the KL Dragons are the only ones coming off three consecutive wins.

Slingers coach Frank Arsego is cautious in his assessment of Satria Muda. He shared: “They are a very good team. We’ve had pretty good performances against them. We played a super game at home against them which was probably our best performance in the season. So that can give us some confidence.”

The Slingers thrashed Satria Muda 96-62 on November 1st, 2009, in Singapore but they needed lady luck to smile on them in Jakarta two weeks later to steal the game from the hosts 61-59 in the dying seconds of the game. The hosts had led the Slingers for 39:36 minutes.

“We’ve come from behind to beat them in an away game and the third game we didn’t play well and they played well so I think it’s pretty even,” Arsego said.

The Slingers were eventually outplayed 67-58 in their third and final game against the Indonesian Basketball League (IBL) champions on December 12, 2009, in Jakarta.

“But if people look at the four teams remaining historically,” Arsego added, “you would rank the Slingers as the fourth seed even though we are in second place. In most match ups, people will consider us as the underdogs but we believe that we deserve to be where we are.”

“We’ve worked hard, extremely hard this year. I think we can be quietly confident but it is still a three-game series. We can’t think too far ahead of ourselves. We want to be in the best position as we can be for our first game,” Arsego concluded with much optimism in his voice.

The first playoff between second-placed Singapore Slingers and third-placed Satria Muda will be played today at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, while league leaders Philippine Patriots will host KL Dragons at the Ynares Sports Arena. Both games will tipoff at 4pm (UTC/GMT +8).

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Categories: Dragons , Patriots , Satria Muda , Slingers , Tigers