Wei Hong’s winning shot at death nails Vietnam

CHOO Wei Hong drained the winning basket in overtime as Malaysia defeated Vietnam 86-85 to improve the national team's chances of a top-four finish at the Southeast Asian Basketball Championship in Manila yesterday.

Ting Chun Hong also came up big for a second game in a row with 28 points, a day after scoring 18 in a win over Singapore, before producing a last-second block on Le Ngoc Tu's three-point attempt to win the game.

Malaysia improved to 2-3 with the win and a victory over bottom-side Myanmar tomorrow will seal fourth place in the seventeam tournament.

In the first meeting between the two countries since the 2005 Seaba Championship in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Vietnam were deadlocked at 76-76 at the end of the regulation period after Heng Yee Tong's three-pointer failed to drop.

Malaysia had rallied from a 6660 deficit with four minutes remaining to tie the game and force the overtime period.

In the last 30 seconds of the game, Yee Tong made one of three free-throws to put Malaysia ahead 84-83 before Ngoc Tu's pair of converted free shots pushed Vietnam ahead.

Then came Wei Hong's winning shot with seven seconds to go as he took his tally to 20 points on eight of 13 shooting while Chun Hong made five of 10 attempts from the three-point line.

Yee Tong had 12 points while Mak Lok Seng and Chan Kek Thai each had seven points while grabbing 10 and 11 rebounds respectively as Teo Kok Hou dished out 11 assists.

Trieu Han Minh led Vietnam with 20 points while Nguyen Van Hung had 16 points and 12 rebounds.

Earlier, Singapore picked up their first win of the tournament in four matches by beating Myanmar 85-32. Devinder Singh