Red Crew Erwin Wong and Alan Chiang take on celebrities Allan Wu and Irene Ang (and win)

Story by Yvonne Yap/Red Sports. Pictures by REDintern Jon Han Tan and Vanessa Lim/Red Sports.

Singapore Indoor Stadium, Thursday, December 17, 2009 – The Singapore Slingers ended their three-game losing streak with a 69-66 win over the Thailand Tigers last week, but it was a special layup on court by Red Crew Erwin Wong that got fellow crew members up on their feet during half-time.

A friendly six-minute match between the media and celebrities was a refreshing addition to half-time entertainment, which ended 2-0 in the media’s favour.

Red Crew Alan Chiang and Erwin Wong were part of a media team which went up against a celebrities team that included Allan Wu, Benjamin Heng and Irene Ang.

While the standard of play could not match up to the Slingers, the level of entertainment certainly kept the audience and Red Crew engrossed for the full six minutes (partly out of the morbid curiosity to see if our crew members would shoot any air balls. They didn’t).

Alan, who had just returned from Perth for his summer holidays, was pumped up about the half-time game. He commented, “I just got a new pair of shoes for this game! The 6-minute game wasn’t enough to show our basketball skills on the court!”

Alan used to play basketball while in secondary school but stopped playing after that, picking it up again only after completing national service and played with his friends over in Australia in the last few months.

The Red Crew awarded the man-of-the-match accolade to Erwin (out of relief) because we were about to watch the first 0-0 basketball game ever when Erwin stole the ball and finished off a fast break with a layup. Like Alan, Erwin has been playing basketball since 12 and still plays weekly with his colleagues.

“We aimed to deny Allan [Wu] the easy basket, and make him take the outside shot. We also worked hard to clamp down on Benjamin Heng and Nicholas Chee, as both of them were capable of scoring as well,” shared Erwin about the media team strategy for the game. Both sides had met earlier in the week for a practice game and the media team had won one game and lost two then.

Being a stranger to playing in front of a large crowd in the Singapore Indoor Stadium, Erwin’s nerves acted up before the game. He gallantly attributed his layup in the second half to a Subway cookie from fellow Red Crew member, Jan Lin.

“As it turned out, it gave me the intestinal fortitude to make the game-winning lay-up as well as play credible defence against a good team. So kids, eat your cookies before game time, ok?” said Erwin.

To that, Jan summed up simply, “If you can’t do a layup, you can feed those who can. Red Sports is all about team work.”

“And also to the other Red Crew who showed their raucous support by cheering rabidly for us. I wanted to dunk in appreciation, but I guess, for now, a lay-up would suffice,” Erwin added, tongue firmly in cheek.

And what do the Red Crew have to say about Erwin?

Fellow Red Crew Koh Yizhe mused, “To me, LeBlanc wasn’t the hero of the night – it was Erwin! He did Red Sports proud!”

Added fellow crew member Les Tan: “It’s amazing what a successful layup can do for your dating life. Go forth and date, Erwin.”