Malaysia see off late Singapore onslaught

MALAYSIA withstood a late fightback by Singapore for a 45-41 win to end a run of three consecutive defeats at the Southeast Asian Basketball Championship in Manila yesterday.

Fielding a side full of novices, coach Goh Cheng Huat's side finally registered their first victory on the back of Ting Chun Hong's 18 points.

After going down to Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines, the victory will come as a much needed boost for the national team, who face Vietnam today and Myanmar on Thursday with a chance to move up the standings in the seven-team tournament.

Chun Hong made seven of 16 shots and grabbed seven rebounds while Liaw Chee Huei's seven points was the next highest score for Malaysia in the lowscoring affair.

Delvin Goh paced Singapore with 14 points and 12 rebounds while Wong Wei Long pulled 10 rebounds to go with five points.

Malaysia led 15-13 after the first quarter and 26-20 at half-time before going into the final period with a 35-30 advantage.

Just as Malaysia seemed headed for victory, Singapore's Leon Kwek narrowed the deficit to 4341 with 25 seconds remaining before Chan Kek Thai sank a free throw for 44-41.

Ng Hanbin missed a game-tying three-point shot for Singapore and with time expiring, Singapore had to foul and Chee Huei hit one of two free throws to seal the win.

Malaysia improved to 1-3 after snapping a three-match losing run against Singapore since the 2015 Fiba Asia Championship while in an earlier game, Thailand routed Myanmar 102-35 for their third win in four matches. Devinder Singh