WASL Super League - Edition 1/2006

Starters:     Paul Khoury - Joe Ghattas - Jerod Ward - Fady Khatib - Alvin Sims
Substitutes: Bassem Balaa - George Chibani - Robert Boudagher
 

The 1st leg in WASL Quarter final between Sagesse and Fastlink was a real festival in Murr stadium. With a stadium packed with fans, Sagesse Administration had setup a full entertainment program with female star Maysam Nahas who sang before the game and in the half time brake, star Ghassan Saliba who chanted the Lebanese National Anthem, and Harlem Globetrotters Hoops players who performed wonderful Basketball shows. 

Back to the game analysis, Sagesse had one goal in mind, to win with a big margin to facilitate the qualification task later on in 2nd leg game in Jordan. On the other hand, Fastlink were trying to finish game with the least possible damage.

Sagesse defense was great in the first three quarters, guarding the key players of Fastlink, applying a flawless Zone defense, showing however some gaps on the arc parameter. On the offensive side, the Green was a killer on fast breaks yet not well organized on the set offense. The ball wasn’t rotating perfectly and individual or dual attempts were witnessed most of the times. Fastlink on the other hand was weak from outside depended more on the inside game. Their defense was fine, but no match to the great skills Sagesse players were showing in the game. Although the gap reached 24 points for Sagesse, yet at the end of the game the edge was of 12 points only. 

Ghattas, Khoury, Khatib, Ward, and Sims were chosen by Dragan to start the game focusing on the inside game. Sims was outstanding in penetrating and upsetting Fastlink’s defense, while Fastlink was depending on tall players like Barada and Ayman Douais, benefiting from the mismatch. In the mid of this quarter, Sagesse defense looked shaky especially on the mismatch, leading to a time out call from Dragan to fix this problem and switch to zone. Sagesse played the whole quarter in a very slow rhythm, making use of the whole 24 seconds to consume Fastlink defense till the end. The end of this quarter witnessed some hasty shots from Sagesse players while Fastlink was still playing under the basket, ending the quarter trailing by 7 points (23-16).

2nd quarter started with Balaa replacing Ghattas to stress on the zone defense and offer the help to Khoury under the basket. This tactic turned out to be super effective, leading to many turnovers made by Fastlink offensively. Sagesse was still solid on the offense and the players were widening the gap, benefiting from Fastlink’s many turnovers. Ward was scoring from all angles, Sims was outstanding and contributing offensively as well as defensively. The end of the 2nd quarter was alarming for the Jordanian team trailing by 19 points (43-24) and scoring only 8 points. 

As the 3rd quarter started, Khoury was entering foul trouble with his 3rd personal foul. Despite Sagesse defensive gaps, Fastlink couldn’t benefit from it and kept wasting shots while still unable to stop Sagesse scoring machine. In the last 5 minutes of this quarter, Fastlink switched to zone defense in an attempt to close the paint, but Khatib hammered them from the arc, killing the zone defense. Unfortunately Khoury was called for his 4th personal foul and quickly replaced by Balaa in the last 25 seconds of the quarter which ended in beauty with Sims’s buzzer beater 3-pointer from mid court: 63-43 to Sagesse.

The final quarter was way much different than the previous ones especially in the last 4 minutes : Fastlink switched to man-to man defense and later on full court press to paralyze Sagesse offense. This tactic proved in fact much effective, forcing Sagesse players to commit a lot of turnovers, driving Raca to call for an urgent timeout to put Sagesse back on the right track. Yet Fastlink were closing the gap to 9 points only, way back from the 24!!! Raca had to call for a second time out in a last attempt to solve Fastlink’s zone press defense. Offensively too, Fastlink were getting much better, hammering Sagesse basket from the arc and keeping the score margin around 10 points. The end of the game witnessed a slight improvement in Sagesse play, finally closing the scoresheet with a 12 points difference 83-71.


** Players statistics:
-Fadi Khatib: 21 points - 3 rebounds - 4 assists - 2 steals - 5 Turnovers - 1 3 pts.
-Jerod Ward: 32 points - 12 rebounds - 5 assists - 4 Turnovers - 3 blockshots - 4 3 pts.
-Alvin Sims: 21 points - 5 rebounds - 7 assists - 3 steals - 6 Turnovers
-Paul Khoury: 4 points - 13 rebounds - 2 Turnovers
-Bassem Balaa: 4 rebounds - 1 blockshot - 2 Turnovers 
-Joe Ghattas: 5 points - 1 rebound - 1 assists - 1 3 pts.
-Robert Boudagher: 1 assist 

** Team statistics:
-Rebounds: 41
-Assists: 18
-Steals: 7
-Turnovers: 19
-Blocks: 4
-3 sec.: 5