Hadtex upsets Aspac in Kobatama final
JAKARTA (JP): In a titillating rough and tumble battle, defending champion Aspac of Jakarta yesterday lost its crown to Hadtex of Bandung, its semifinal's runner-up, by just a three- point margin in the National Pro Basketball League's grand final.
The final 57-54 score showed how muddy yesterday's battle was, which made advancing by two points, let alone three, extremely difficult.
"I don't know why our players could not finish as usual," Irawan Haryono, Aspac's manager, said in disbelief.
For Aspac, which had been unbeatable since the league's kick-off in September, the loss was quite anti-climactic. The victory was an unexpected veni, vidi, vici for debutant Hadtex whose target was only to enter the top eight,
"Perhaps we were too tense because as defending champions, we had to win," Irawan said, "After all, they're better."
Suwandi Bing Adi, Hadtex's manager, said the key to his team's victory was playing slow. "We deliberately played slow in order to make them restless and trap them in their own emotion," said Suwandi. Another factor was that his team formed a very strong bulwark, Suwandi added.
Though losing the battle, Aspac demonstrated extraordinary tenacity in coming close to Hadtex, which had taken the lead since the first half (32-24).
In the dying minutes, Aspac's Mohammad Rifki shot a three pointer, making it 46-45. But a few seconds later, center Casey Crawford took revenge with two three-pointers to give Hadtex 49-45, 51-47.
Then, Aspac's errors jacked up Hadtex's score through free throws from 53-47 to 54-47, 55-47, 56-49. At this point, Bobby Parks's three pointer followed by Rifki's a few seconds later made the score 56-54 and sent the 5,000-seat Senayan Basketball Hall, which was packed beyond capacity, into a frenzy.
But at 0:19, Aspac made another error on which Hadtex capitalized, making the score 57-54, which the Hadtex players managed to keep until the game's end by deliberate delays.
As the first winner, Hadtex won prize-money worth Rp 20 million (US$9,116) and two trophies, the league's trophy and the Indonesian Basketball Association (Perbasi's) trophy.
Runner-up Aspac got Rp 15 million and a trophy. Third and fourth winners, Indonesia Muda and Bima Sakti, won Rp 10 million and Rp 5 million respectively.
The other four finalists, Pelita Jaya of Jakarta, Siliwangi of Bandung, Pacific and CLS of Surabaya finished fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth respectively.
Yaksono Soerodjo, the league commission's chairman said this year's league, which for the first time in its 12-year history featured import cagers, was successful.
Third place
Indonesia Muda found consolation for its upset loss to Hadtex in the semifinals with a lackluster 64-58 victory over Bima Sakti of Malang, East Java in the play-off for third place earlier yesterday.
Man-of-the-match Trasel Rone led the Jakarta side with a game high 27 points, including five three-pointers. Nano Sukarma regained the form he dropped in Saturday's semifinal by scoring 17 points to confirm past champion Indonesia Muda's control over the East Javanese.
It was Indonesia Muda's second win over Bima Sakti within a week, following its 85-66 victory in their Group B round-robin match on Wednesday.
The organizer announced Bima Sakti's center, Scott Patterson, with 344 points as top American scorer, and his teammate, guard I Made Sudiadnyana, with 203 points, as top Indonesian scorer.
Perbasi reelected chairman Harmoko, who is also Minister of Information, told reporters that Perbasi's national congress, which was concluded yesterday, agreed to introduce Women Basketball League (Kobanita) next year.
Harmoko said next year's emphasis of the association policy would be on training national coaches. Hence, it was necessary to import foreign coaches to train them, he said. Harmoko also said that to promote basketball the congress decided to fix Oct. 23 as National Basketball Day. (arf)