Slingers bounce back with win over Formosa

ASEAN BASKETBALL LEAGUE

FORMOSA DREAMERS 69

SINGAPORE SLINGERS 87

The Singapore Slingers expunged memories of last week's loss to CLS Indonesia Knights by overpowering Formosa Dreamers 87-69 at the Changhua Stadium in Taiwan yesterday.

Coach Neo Beng Siang had urged his team, who had qualified for the play-offs, to use their defeat by CLS as a wake-up call and he was satisfied with his team's response.

He said: "After the last loss, we came back and we played strong during training and today to get the momentum back to our play-offs. These two games are really important.

"For me, I'm pretty happy with the energy levels that the players brought and they stuck to what we were supposed to do.

"At times, we really fell apart but they stuck together and got it back and I'm happy to see that."

The Dreamers started the game strongly as they took the lead.

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But Neo's side refused to be denied for long as their strong defence saw them stifle the home side and surge to a 27-17 advantage.

The Taiwanese outfit found their way back in the second quarter, reducing the deficit to 27-30, but the Singapore side regained their dominance to end the second quarter 44-33 up.

A more confident Slingers returned in the third quarter to grow their lead to 22 points, but a fightback in the last two minutes saw the Dreamers trim the gap to 14 points at 63-49.

The Dreamers' inability to stem the Slingers'attacks eventually saw the Singapore side seal the game in the final quarter.

The Slingers were without Delvin Goh, Larry Liew and Leon Kwek due to national service but Russell Low, Kelvin Lim and Desmond Oh stepped up with an impressive performance.

AJ Mandani also scored a game- and career-high 30 points.

The Slingers will end their regular season with a visit to Vietnam's Saigon Heat on Saturday. - KIMBERLY KWEK