Home teams still dominate Kobatama
JAKARTA (JP): Dwui Eriano's basket with eight seconds left lifted Jakarta-based Satria Muda to a 64-63 victory over Wismilak Cahaya Lestari Surabaya (CLS) in the third series of the 2001 Nuvo Kobatama national basketball league on Sunday.
Defending champion Aspac Texmaco, also from Jakarta, demonstrated its dominance, trouncing Bima Sakti Nikko Steel of Malang 94-66 to stay on top of the standings.
Aspac only needs one more victory to secure its berth in the final four, while Satria Muda needs two wins to advance. Aspac has six more games to play while Satria Muda has seven.
On Sunday, CLS jumped to an early 23-17 lead, but Satria Muda managed to narrow the gap to 35-32 at halftime at the Bung Karno basketball hall in Senayan.
CLS hung tough against the 1999 champion and finished the third quarter with a slim 46-45 lead. In the final quarter, both teams turned up the defensive pressure and national player Hari Suharsono of CLS helped his team to a 48-45 lead.
The two teams exchanged baskets in the hard-fought fourth quarter and Satria Muda took a 60-59 lead.
CLS point guard Agung Sunarko was floored by Syahrizal Affandi with two minutes left, and Agung calmly sank both free throws to give CLS a 61-60 advantage.
Agung added two more points with 66 seconds remaining to make it 63-60. Satria Muda's Roni Ronaldy, who replaced veteran Fictor G. Roring as center in the last quarter, made two free throws to cut CLS' lead to 63-62.
Agung, who played a key role for his team down the stretch, missed two free throws with 17 seconds left in the game.
The misses cost CLS, which saw the game slip away when Dwui scored in the closing seconds to give his team the 64-63 victory.
CLS assistant coach Sapto Wahyu Purnomo praised Satria Muda's strategy.
"They played very well. We tried to match them but their strategy worked better than ours. This is not about luck, but in the last seconds the CLS players lost their focus," he said.
Sapto said CLS coach Eddy Santoso told his players to tighten their defense in the final 17 seconds to prevent Satria Muda from making a three pointer.
"We tried to shadow Satria Muda shooting guard Agustinus D. Sigar wherever he went, but their club had a better strategy than us," he said, while praising Agung for never losing his concentration despite the pressure he was under.
Satria Muda assistant coach Apriyadi said that coach Rastafari Horongbala told his players to turn up the offense in the final 17 seconds.
"He asked the players to concentrate on offense and to score quickly. We had very little time, but we tried to narrow the gap during that period." (ivy)