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

Starters:      Paul Khoury - Fady Khatib - Kenny Satterfield - Jerod Ward - Elie Mechantaf
Substitutes:  Bassem Balaa
 

The Greens proved to be alive and kicking as shown by their creditable performance against arch-rivals Sporting in Manara. Raca’s lads effectively wiped out the memories of the first leg’s degrading defeat and emerged with an inspired show and glimpses of much more to come.

Sagesse started the game with Paul Khoury on position 5 surrounded by a highly-versatile lineup consisting of Kenny Satterfield, Elie Mechantaf, Fadi Khatib and Jerod Ward. Surprisingly, the first quarter was characterized by an extremely low shooting percentage. Fadi Khatib initially got the tricky task of marking Toni Madison with no great success, forcing Raca to favor Satterfield to carry out that charge later on. The two teams went neck and neck for the majority of that quarter’s proceedings and as soon as Sporting opened up a five-point gap, it was a bomb from downtown by the emblematic Mechantaf that signaled the end of the opening ten minutes with Sagesse trailing 15-13.

Dragan Raca’s touch became clearer as the game went on. Defensively, the Serbian-Cypriote coach applied a complex man-to-man marking that transforms to box-and-one on Toni Madison, added to the quick player switches to face Sporting’s screens. The home side had their American guard to thank in the second quarter as he kept them on track with an unbelievable show from behind-the-arc (4 three-pointers). Fadi Khatib and Jerod Ward proved up to Madison’s challenge and matched his input from the same distance. At half-time, the game was still a too-close-to-call affair (35-35).

Sporting had a significant edge at the beginning of the third quarter when they profited from an apparent let up in Sagesse’s defensive commitment and managed to grab successive offensive rebounds. A mini-break of 6 points (46-40) re-ignited the Greens’ desire and returned hot on their opponent’s heels owing to Ward, Khatib and Satterfield. Nonetheless, the last word of that quarter went to Sporting’s Joe Vogel who scored the final basket to end it with a 54-52 scoreline.

The fourth quarter got underway with baskets at both ends of the court but no team seemed capable of imposing its rhythm on the game. That situation lasted for five minutes approximately till Sagesse misused a couple of opportunities and got duly punished straight away by Sporting’s Omar Turk whose five successive points enabled his team to create a 70-64 cushion at a crucial stage of the game. Consequently, the remaining time was just a matter of running out the clock for Sporting since Sagesse never looked able to accomplish the comeback. The game ended with a 78-72 score.

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