Basketball is my life!

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Sorry for not updating for the past 2 days. Been bz, my frens. OK, first things first. Last Sunday, I went to watch the final matches of the Petronas Cup, and I was not disappointed. The first game of the day, the 5th-6th placing game, was a total blowout in the end. That match was between Melaka & KL, and up till the middle of the 2nd quarter, Melaka was comfortably leading by 12 points. But due to turnovers and defensive frailties, that lead was quickly turned upside-down, as KL stormed back into the lead and never looked back. The result? I forgot, but it was a blowout victory for KL.

The 2nd match, to determine who gets the 3rd and 4th places, holds great promise. What's not to like? My inspiration, Oliver, was there. Huhuhu... I'd never miss it for the world, baybeee! It was between Labuan and Sabah. The game was close up till the end, with Oliver making lots of sweet plays. Unfortunately, near the end of the 4th quarter, Oliver fouled out, and Labuan capitulated. They no longer had a go to guy, and Sabah won that game. However, the final score was quite close. It's just that I forgot what its exact value is. :D

The 3rd match was THE match of the day. It was the final match, and it was between the top 2 teams in the tournament: Penang versus Petronas. Even the warmups were fantastic. Both sides, Petronas and Penang, have players performing slam dunks during the warmups. Wow... I'm breathless...

Both sides also have stars in their respective teams. In the Penang side, we have THE standout player of the tournament (should even be called the MVP of the tournament!): Andrew Mulhearn. Wow... if u ppl are basketball fans, u should watch this guy (unless, of coz, if u're from the US, then u don't have to bother about Malaysian basketball as u have ur own NBA stars! ;)). He can shoot really well, be it mid-range jumpers or even 3 pointers. He can dribble really quick: there was this one time during the final match that he went for a fastbreak, all alone, beating 4 defenders all by himself, and scoring on a layup. GREAT! He can rebound the ball well. He can jump really high. He can even dunk, and even able to perform alley-oop dunks! He's a really, really great player. Unfortunately I can't emulate his style of play, since he's quite tall. I dunno... I think at the very least, he's 180 cm. But I'm just guessing. He might be 185-190 cm.

Apart from Andrew, Penang also have Helbert Legada, a veteran player, who was once very skilful, but now his skill has decreased in terms of shooting prowess. Nevertheless, he still plays the point really well, and displayed his skills effectively in this final match.

In the Petronas team, of coz most of them are stars, since they consist of players who are either in the national team or players who are being groomed to be absorbed into the national senior or junior team in the future.

However, they have 3 standout players that I should mention: Satyaseelan, our national team captain; Guganeswaran (a.k.a. Abi); and Yaser. Seelan is a very skilful player. In actual fact, due to his size, speed, and shooting prowess, I should say that he's sort of like Andrew. The only difference might be that Seelan can shoot 3 pointers further away from the 3 point line. There was this one time my fren saw him shoot a 3 pointer from mid-court!

Yaser: he's a member of the national junior team. This is the 2nd time I've watched him play. Previously, I watched him during last year's Adidas 3-on-3 tournament. This time, he is as skilful as ever, but I find that his deadliest weapon is his 3 point shooting accuracy. As long as he's not too pressured, I can assure u that his 3 point shots will definitely go into the basket. Wow... I want to be able to shoot the ball as good as him la...

Abi? Well, he's definitely the quickest player in Malaysia I've ever seen. He's even quicker than Oliver! Abi's a member of the national team (of coz!), and it shows. He can perform great, 'ankle-breaking' crossovers, pivot dribble, can perform shot modifications while on air, has long hang time, can dunk the ball, and many other things. The only thing that he's lacking might be shooting range, as I think it's rare that I see him shoot 3 pointers. He prefers cutting inside and going for the layup.

As for the final match? It was great, and it was a very close game. I think it was the closest final match I've ever seen (the last final match of Petronas Cup I've seen was in 2002, where it was a blowout victory by Petronas). It was nail-biting all the way to the end. The largest lead was obtained by Penang near the end of the 1st quarter, where they were leading by 7 points, but Petronas came back and tied the game. After that, the score was always close: the lead either swinged in Penang's way, or came back to Petronas' way, or stay balanced in the middle. The reason for Penang's great performance was due to Andrew's skill: he shot timely 3 pointers, went for layups, shot jumpers, drew fouls, and many more. Petronas, well, what else can be said? For sure they are a very talented team...

The final score? Petronas won, but only just... 99-96. Andrew missed a game-tying 3 point buzzer beater. If only he had made that shot, the game would've went into overtime, and I would be able to watch more of that very, very interesting contest! Ah well...

Huhuhu... there, I've typed a very long entry didn't I? :) Just so u know, I'm a basketball freak, so that's why I like talking much about basketball. Sorry for the too long entry okay? If u made it to this line, thanks for reading! *hugs* :)


Posted by Nikman Shah at 1:00 am
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