Satria Muda spirit haunts Slingers in ABL

By Jan Lin/Red Hoops in Jakarta

It was a mid-week ASEAN Basketball League (ABL) game tucked away in the Jakarta suburb of Kelapa Gading on a rainy evening, but Satria Muda BritAma’s "6th man" still showed up to fuel the hosts' hunger for victory. The 74-45 score line in Jakarta had less to do with a sedated Singapore Slingers team than it was about a spirited Satria Muda.

Even the roar of thunder outside the arena was no match for the vibrant concoction of up-tempo music blended with the "6th man" unity chant of "In-do-ne-sia" of zealous fans singing their hearts out in the arena. Like a choir director, the home crowd dictated the home team's rhythm of the game.

The visitors, on the other hand, were just out-of-tune and were caught travelling far too many times, disrupting the flow of their usual game. The Slingers were not so much out-played than they were out-spirited by the hosts, a replay of their last visit to Jakarta in December.

“This venue hasn’t been too kind to us this season and it has just come back to haunt us really," Slingers head coach Frank Arsego said of their Jakarta hoodoo. "Full credit to them, they had the energy level. I thought we started the game ok but for whatever reason we just couldn’t sustain it."

It was not what the "6th man" did to the visitors but what they did for the hosts that debilitated the visitors' ego because any taunts hurled onto the court were either lost in translation or deeply buried in the non-stop music. It is superficial to see the "6th man" effect as brash hostility towards the visiting team when in reality it is about creating an uplifting atmosphere that fires up the home team.

“Their zone defense sort of stuffed us up a bit," admitted coach Arsego. "We had a zone attack that worked really well for us back home and we’ll have that on Sunday but for whatever reason we just didn’t have that kind of assertiveness here, we just didn’t have the confidence. People who had the open shots, didn’t take it and I don’t know what brought the mindset – we are going to fix that."

The game appeared to be over by the end of the third period with the Slingers at just 35 points and without a response to the hosts' 21-point lead. Both teams then released an all-local line-up in the second half of the final period where the Singaporeans kept their cool and outscored the Indonesians 7-2.

And that became the silver-lining in the stormy night. Coach Arsego said: "I thought a couple of local boys really dug in, like [Hong} Wei Jian played really hard and Desmond [Oh] came on quite strong at the end for us, which is really good and showed we don’t just allow teams to dominate us right to the end."

“The best thing for us is that we have been rewarded for five months of great work and by finishing second we have the home-court advantage and if we can maximise it on Sunday like they did here, we would have fulfilled one of our goals," concluded the Australian coach.

Satria Muda's head coach Fictor Roring was pleased that his team lived up to their semangat (Bahasa Indonesian for ‘spirit’) reputation.

“As you can see, there is a big difference in the spirit and the enthusiasm in my players. My players wanted to win. We want to go to the finals, we want to play in our gym again," he said.

“We were ok in the first half [last Sunday] but in the second half, we lost our aggressiveness because the Slingers pressed us offensively and defensively and they were more enthusiastic and aggressive, [while] my local players’ aggressiveness was just not there," added coach Roring on last Sunday's loss.

Unlike the first playoff game in Singapore, where Satria Muda's American duo of Alex Hartman and Nakiea Miller shouldered the scoring load, local boy Welyanson Situmorang stepped up in the second game, scoring 12 points and registering a 100% shooting record (FG and FT) in his 11:23 minutes on court. Situmorang scored eight points in the final period when the two imports were rested.

Coach Roring said: "We studied Sunday’s game closely to see who could control this game from the beginning. Our defense stopped Jeffers – he scored only five points! Jeffers and LeBlanc are Slingers’ key players. We thought about how to stop them because if we stop the two of them, we’ve won half the battle."

Satria Muda had to make a prompt tactical change after losing key defender Christian Sitepu to an anterior-cruciate ligament (ACL) injury picked up in Singapore which has laid him off for the rest of the season.

Sitepu was forced to retire after just 8:03 minutes of play in Singapore and coach Roring believed that the sudden loss of Sitepu, who was tasked to guard Marcus Ng, affected his plans and rotation.

Slingers' ASEAN import Marcus Ng did a phenomenal job in defending Alex Hartman in Singapore and was again a source of frustration for the American in his own backyard. Hartman shot 29% in Singapore on Sunday and managed 38% in Jakarta, but these statistics do not do justice to the level of positive energy and exuberance Hartman brought to his team, especially in the second game.

“Satria Muda were more comfortable playing at home and they played better," shared Marcus Ng. "We weren’t quite on the ball from the start of the game. From there we dug ourselves a hole and couldn’t get out of it, something just wasn’t right, like we are tired and our legs are gone. It was a tough game, Kyle has a tough job inside, he had to get to the board for us and do his job on Miller. Usually there are a couple of us who can help him out but tonight we couldn’t find a way.”

The game's top scorer, Nakiea Miller, had silenced both his critics and Slingers’ Kyle Jeffers.

On shutting Jeffers down, Miller let out a cheeky grin and said: “We did a good job in not letting Jeffers get to the basket and I did a good job one-on-one with him. Slingers like to put LeBlanc in the middle and not really play defense on anybody. We are going to work on that, get our shooters on the board and once we make a couple of shots early then I can go one-on-one with Jeffers."

"It’s my job the next few days to get my guys ready, especially in their defense and their confidence," continued Miller. "Its game three from tomorrow on and this Sunday we are going to do what we did here. We got going from the jump and we were tough on our defense, we wanted [the win] more than we did last Sunday. So we need to want it more than they (the Slingers) do on Sunday."

For such an insatiable appetite, coach Roring believes the key is in bringing the Satria Muda spirit to Singapore, he concluded.

"We have won on the road in Malaysia and Thailand so I don’t think we have a problem in our away games. But my players will have to bring this spirit, aggression and enthusiasm to Singapore on Sunday because the Slingers will be really confident playing at home."

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