It’s the first of only two meetings between the Formosa Dreamers and Mono Vampire Basketball Club and it comes at an important part of the ABL season for both teams.
Currently at the bottom of the standings at 1-5, Formosa needs to start putting wins together or risk getting left behind. The Dreamers have scheduled all of their home games in back to back days and this would be the second time it will happen this season.
The first instance was not too kind for the Dreamers as they suffered losses to Tanduay Alab Pilipinas and Hong Kong Eastern Basketball Team. Now, they’ll have to try and forget about being tired after their loss to the Saigon Heat as they face another big challenge in Mono Vampire.
Formosa replaced Jaleel Cousins during the Christmas break with Reggie Okosa who was released by Tanduay Alab Pilipinas during the same span. However, even this change could not help them grab a win.
Instead of imports, it was local Wu Sung Wei who led the Dreamers in scoring against Saigon with 21 points on 7 of 9 shooting from the field. Lenny Daniel had 17 points and 9 rebounds while Okosa only managed 13 points alongside 10 boards.
At 4-3, Mono Vampire has been hot and cold as of late but they made a big move in during the Christmas break by replacing former ABL MVP Reggie Johnson. It was literally a “big” move as they hired the services of Samuel Deguara of Malta who’s the tallest player to ever step into the ABL at 7-foot-4.
Widely accepted as the fourth tallest active basketball player in the world, Deguera has big shoes to fill as Johnson normed 23 points and 14 rebounds per contest but the big man, with his US size 23 shoes, is more than ready to give it a try.
Johnson was released by Mono Vampire as he was a bit trigger happy from the three-point line which robbed the team of their best offensive rebounder. He also had trouble keeping the ball in possession with 6.5 turnovers per game.
With Deguera, the Thailand-based team is hoping to have a big body who will just focus on working hard inside the paint.
If Deguera controls the shaded area, Mono Vampire has more than enough weapons from the outside such as their other World import Patrick Sanders and Heritage imports Paul Zamar and Jason Brickman. They also have a bunch of locals who could score such as Chitchai Ananti and Ratdech Kruatiwa.
As Mono Vampire features one of the deadliest offense in the ABL, the Dreamers would have to focus on their defense on risk being left all alone at the bottom of the rankings.
