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Tigers top Ducks to force Game 6
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THE Xinjiang Flying Tigers kept their national championship hopes alive with a hard-fought 83-80 victory over the Beijing Ducks in Game 5 of the Chinese Basketball Association finals yesterday at Wukesong Arena.
The Ducks came into last night’s game with a 3-1 lead in the best-of-7 finals and few would have bet against Stephon Marbury’s side clinching their second league title at home.
The Ducks led all the way, carrying a 46-36 advantage into the second half. The match suddenly turned in the latter part of the third quarter as accurate long-range shooting helped Xinjiang to cut the gap to only one point, with Beijing leading 61-60 coming into the final quarter.
With a drop in performance of Beijing’s foreign players, Xinjiang grabbed the lead for the first time with 2.5 minutes left on the clock, 78-77. Lester Hudson of the Tigers sank another basket to make it 80-77. Neither side managed to score a point in the next two minutes.
An exhausted Marbury brought the 15,000-strong home fans to life with a 3-pointer with 35 seconds left, tying the score at 80-80. It was only his second 3-pointer of the match.
As the game headed for a cliffhanger, former Boston Celtics’ player Hudson kept his cool, shooting a 3-pointer to edge the visitors ahead 83-80. With Beijing failing to complete its last attack over the 12 seconds of the match, it was the Tigers who were smiling, their championship hopes, which had looked well and truly buried at one point, alive. They will fancy their chances when the teams meet again in Urumqi tomorrow for Game 6.
“We managed to adjust ourselves well mentally despite the 1-3 setback,” said Xinjiang forward Korambek Makhan. “We will carry on fighting; the finals are far from over.”
Hudson scored a game-high 36 points and grabbed 13 rebounds. Beijing’s American duo Marbury and Randolph Morris contributed 14 points each.
Beijing won its only CBA title in the 2011-12 season, beating the Guangdong Southern Tigers in the finals. Xinjiang has been runner-up three straight times since the 2008-09 season, losing to Guangdong all three times.
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