Philips Singapore Cup 2006 (Basketball)

World-class basketball at the Singapore Indoor Stadium from August 11 to 13, 2006 when the Singapore Cup comes back for a second year running.

Basketball fans here and in the region can look forward to three days of brilliant play by a number of NBA stars from four top national teams.Argentina, Gold medalists at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.Defending World Champions Serbia and Montenegro.Slovenia - Ranked 22th in the world.Spain - Ranked 5th in the world.Also featuring: Singapore All-Stars, Malaysia All-Stars, Melbourne Tigers (Australia) & Yulong Club (Chinese Taipei)

On 11 August 06, I made my first journey to watch the basketball game between Slovenia and Spain. The last game of the day, cost me S$16 per ticket. Sweetheart have push away her night tuition and joined me for the 8:30pm game.

It was a traffic jam journey to Kallang MRT to pick up pheck leng, as alot of people are rushing over to Marina, and town area to watch the fireworks festival for the National Day. I guess the organiser has done a good job in getting the attention of the public attentions, but they do have to take care of how to handle the situation too.

We reached Singapore Indoor stadium around 7:45pm, brought the ticket and proceed to look for a quick bite. Alas it is all resturants around, we don't have the time to sit down to eat, ended up we have sandwiches on the sidewalk 7-11. I was surprised that we have to ate the sandwiches cold as there are no microwave in the shop !!!!

We entered the stadium around 8:20pm after the previous game have completed. It was around 10% occupied and we managed to get good seatings. I didn't realised the stadium is so small(maybe it is the angel and closer of our seatings). I can see and hear the play pretty good.

The games are meant for the built up for the teams going for basketball world cup in Japan starting on 19 August 06. It was a closed match between the 2 teams for the first half, as Solvenia took a slim lead. By the 3rd quarter, the class of Spain have make a difference. It was a runaway game at the last quarter.

I have a good time seeing some of the wonderful plays and individual skills that i normally don't get to see. Even on NBA( on tv), i don't pay attention to the moves, but this time round, watching it LIVE, i appreciate those small movements off the ball and the ball handling skills.

I wish all the best to those teams taking part in the coming world cup in Japan.

Some pictures of the game



warm up before the game - Solvenia




warm up before the game - Spain



another one before the game




a foul




foul shot




Pau Gasol in action




a beautiful 3 pointer




Pau Gasol scores