Even though they're no longer with us, their fighting spirit still lives. As if mourning the loss of one of our country's top franchise, Buterter, we were assigned to host Malaysia U21 in their arena tonight.
In the run up to this game, I initially wanted to go with an outside offense, since their U21 manager seemed to have a penchant for running 2-3 against us when we seem like an inside oriented team. But with the basket being very unfriendly for us recently, I had to prioritize gaining possessions, which is why I went with LI to maximize our chances to grab offensive boards.
Things couldn't have gone smoother for us. We flew to a 27-22 lead in the first quarter, with our aggressive play riling up our neighbours as they committed foul after foul to send us to the line again and again. Sadly, our team seems to be cursed with bad free throw shooting, as we only hit 7 of 14 attempts. Nevertheless, it was enough to give us an early lead. Our boys pushed the lead further in the second, coming out tops after a tight boxing match to start the quarter where both sides exchanged punches non stop. We let our foot off the pedal in the second half, but thankfully, our first half heroics (and a failed hack-a-shaq attempt by Malaysia U21) were enough to close the game.
Chua How Feng was our best player in the game. Despite being repeatedly boxed out by our neighbours when he tried to fight to rebounds, he managed to contribute well on both sides of the court, with an impressive statline of 25 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 steals. He shot 75% from field. Nathan Macklin was not far behind, hitting 24 points off 71% shooting. He also picked up 7 rebounds and 2 assists.
As our opponents were trying their best to keep Chua How Feng in check, they left Tay Shun Shiong alone, and the 6'7" bigman summoned his inner Dennis Rodman (same height too!) and dominated the boards. He was the only player in the game to get a double-double, as he pulled down an impressive 18 rebounds to go with his 11 points. Despite not having much rest, thanks to Fong Kum Hui being KOed after 1 minute of play, he did not let fatigue overcome him and put in the best performance of his U21 career.
With this win, we secured 3rd place in the group, which is pretty meaningless. Still, it was a good game, with our boys finally finding the net at a high rate again. Of course, it was at the expense of our defense, but I guess the teadeoff was worth it. Our next match will be the last scrimmage of the season. I'd most probably drop some players from the team so we can have a sneak peek of some future players. That said, as usual, I'd keep the top contributors around so we can have a goodbye match for them (and hopefully Chua How Feng climbs onto 2nd place in the all-time rebounding chart).