Lebanese Basketball Championship - Men Division One - Regular Season 2005/06

Starters:      Elie Mechantaf - Paul Khoury - Fady Khatib - George Chibani - Jerod Ward
Substitutes:  Bassem Balaa - Joe Ghattas Yervant Avakian - Maurice Boukanaan
                   Elie Estephan - Mario Bou Abboud

Sagesse easily overcame bottom-placed Antranik in a partially-crowded Centre Démerjian in Antélias, after a convincing display that reflected good preparation in the closed training camp that took place during the previous weeks. However, the injuries’ plague seems to be haunting the Greens week after week, as Elie Mechantaf joined the long list of injured players (that includes Kenny Satterfield, Rodrigue Nacouzi and Charles Bardawil) with a foot injury that prevented him from continuing a game that he had started brightly in the 1st quarter when scoring repetitively from the 3-points Arc.
The game witnessed the appearance of Jerod Ward for the first time with Sagesse as he replaced Lamine Diawara. Ward was able to show good scoring patterns.

The fact that Satterfield is injured meant that Coach Raca had to deal with local point guards throughout the whole game: Both Georges Chibani and especially Yervant Avakian were up to the expectations and they contributed very efficiently to the relatively easy victory.
Dragan Raca started the game with Chibani on position 1, Elie Mechantaf, Fadi El Khatib, Paul Khoury on position 5, and Jerod Ward as the sole foreigner on Sagesse’s side. Bassem Balaa and Yervant Avakian also contributed to the last minutes of the first quarter of the game: Sagesse was adopting a man-to-man aggressive defense that suited very well the playing style of the over-motivated Avakian who wanted to show good impression while facing his former club in its home ground. Quarter one ended with a score of 21-12.
The second Quarter started with Avakian and Balaa still in, while Paul Khoury and Georges Chibani were on the bench. Sagesse adopted efficient quick passes offensively. A full-court press aggressive defense led by an awesome Avakian helped Sagesse widening the gap in less than 2 minutes as the score became rapidly 27-13. Joe Ghattas came in and he constituted with Yervant a very active and fast duo. The selection with high pace capabilities implemented a full-court press defense with traps all over the court in order to cope for the low height average. 
Paul Khoury and Georges Chibani replaced Ghattas and Avakian, and Sagesse continued the 2nd quarter with a zone defense that was eased by the presence of relatively tall men on the pitch (Khoury, Khatib, Ward and Balaa). Bassem acted offensively with style and he scored repeatedly. The score was 42-28 at half-time.

The 3rd quarter took off with Bassem, Yervant, Fadi, Jerod and Paul as starters. Antranik was displaying a good zone defense with which Sagesse’s offense had some difficulties. The Greens scored only 3 points (Ward) in four minutes. Coach Raca was adopting a man-to-man defense with helps (double-teams) but there was no effective box-out on rebounds. The presence of both Balaa and Khoury favored an inside game which was fruitful at some points. Defensively, Sagesse switched back to full-court press in the middle of the 3rd quarter; a switch that was boosted by the comeback of Joe Ghattas instead of Paul Khoury. The Ghattas-Avakian duet was again overwhelming on offense with Joe scoring a 3 pointer to increase the score to 58-30 two minutes and 40 seconds before the end of the quarter. Bassem Balaa was also on fire and he was scoring easily. In the last 2 minutes of the 3rd Quarter, there were serious gaps defensively and the transition defense was usually late. The Green Fans cheered the appearance of Maurice Bou Kanaan who replaced Balaa towards the end of the quarter. Bou Kanaan proved his potential as soon as he entered, and he needed just a space of 25 seconds to open his scoring counter. The 3rd quarter ended on the score of 66-36.
Bou Kanaan, Ghattas and Avakian started the 4th quarter along with Khatib and Ward who remained permanently on the ground throughout the whole game. Sagesse’s players were tempted by the outside game: there were too many shots with a modest efficiency percentage. Georges Chibani replaced Yervant Avakian. There were true flaws on the defense with a continuously late and slow transition defense. 3 minutes after the beginning of the last quarter, Antranik had scored 8 pts while Sagesse scored only 3. This laziness on defense coupled with the lack of offensive efficiency pushed Coach Dragan Raca to ask for a time out. 
Bassem Balaa and mainly Jerod Ward impressed on the offensive side as they were the principal contributors to the aggravation of the score that became 76-47 3 minutes before the end of the game. Elie Estephan made his appearance for Sagesse as he replaced Joe Ghattas. Stephan was aggressive in the man-to-man defense (with double team helps). Fadi el Khatib revitalized the fans with a slam-dunk 2 minutes before the end. The score was now 80-47.
Further youngsters were introduced progressively by Coach Raca, with Mario Bou Abboud coming in for Georges Chibani and Maurice Bou Kanaan replacing Bassem Balaa. Jerod Ward remained perpetually consistent on offense. His 3 pointer made the score 83-48 with 1 min and 30 seconds remaining till the end. 
The game ended on a nice note with youngsters Bou Kanaan, Stephan and Bou Abboud playing alongside experts Ward and Khatib to end the match with a 30 pts difference and a final score of 83-53. 

With the list of injuries being gradually populated, the immediate future of the Green Basketball selection remains quite uncertain. However, the quality and the motivation of youngsters made it clear that the long-term future of Sagesse is in safe and fine hands. The touch of Coach Raca is already detectable, tough still in a limited dimension. As our promising youngster Elie Stephan put it “We could have played a better game; we were good on defense but weak on offense. We need more time to improve.”

-Game statistics chart courtesy of Al-Balad newspaper - Sports Section ©-Al-Balad-2005 - All Rights reserved: