SINGAPORE - The Singapore Slingers overcame Westports Malaysia Dragons 75-73 in Game 4 of the Asean Basketball League (ABL) Finals to keep their hopes of winning a first-ever ABL title alive at a fully packed OCBC Arena on Sunday afternoon.
With the Slingers losing Game 3 of the series last Friday to the Dragons 72-90 and trailing 1-2 in the first-to-three wins series, they knew that this was a must-win game.
In front of a capacity crowd of 2,505, the Slingers did not have the best of starts and trailed 17-18 after the first quarter. But led by centre Justin Howard, they came back strong and went into the break leading 39-36.
Cheered on by the travelling Malaysian fans, the Dragons came firing back and levelled the scores at 65-65 midway midway through the fourth quarter. But with time running out, Slingers' point guard Wong Wei Long sank one right at the death to secure a hard-fought victory.
Howard led the Slingers with 31 points followed by Xavier Alexander on 15 points. For the Dragons, Calvin Godfrey led the scoring chart with 25 points followed closely by Matthew Wright on 23 points.
With this victory, the series is now finely poised at 2-2. The deciding game to determine the ABL champions for this season will be played on Saturday in Kuala Lumpur.
