DUBAI (United Arab Emirates) - Kuwait Club weathered a late-game Al Riyadi rally, 95-85, to reach the FIBA WASL Final, Friday night at the Sheikh Saeed Bin Maktoum Sports Hall.

The WASL-Gulf champions pulled away as early as the first quarter, but needed to fend off the injury-riddled yet gritty WASL-West Asia titlists in the final minutes to secure the victory - as well as  the chance to add the new pan-regional league's biggest prize to their rich trophy collection.

Kuwait Club will take on Manama in the winner-take-all championship bout on Saturday night in a rematch of the Gulf League best-of-3 Final just last May, which the former won via sweep.

Game heroes: Marcus Georges-Hunt led Kuwait Club with a game-high 32 points spiked by 4 triples, rightfully earning STEP AHEAD Player of the Game honors.

Turki Alshemmari was the only other double-digit scorer in the win with 16 points -- wherein he also sank 4 treys -- but a total of nine players scored at least 2 in the victory.

Turning point: Kuwait Club led by as much 26 points, 84-58, early in the final period but became a victim of complacency, which Al Riyadi took advantage of by chopping the deficit to just seven following Karim Zeinoun's outside shot with only 2:45 remaining on the clock.

Georges-Hunt, however, was there to douse cold water to the rally. He drilled a trey from the top and then perfected a trip to the foul line to push their lead to 89-77 with 2:13 left.

The Lebanese side got to within seven again two more times, but Cady Lalanne and Alshemmari were there to keep them at bay, with the latter settling the final count via free throws.

Stats don't lie: Three-point shooting was indeed key for Kuwait Club as they sank a total of 17, which are the second-most triples made in a Final 8 game. They were only two away from the record set by Al Riyadi in their 106-91 win over Beirut Club in the Group Phase last 12 June.

They said: "Good win. We came out the way we wanted, you know, with good pressure. Obviously they're missing their point guards so that's what we tried to do. We put our foot down intensity-wise. They didn't match it. I just told Marcus, I was expecting them to do something sooner or later in the game defensively at least. But intensity-wise, they looked flat. It built us up. Marcus had a great game and he scored well, Turki made some shots, then Fahed came in against the zone, hit some important threes. Of course it's demoralizing for them as well but, yeah, it was a good win. We're in the Finals. We're happy. Here we are, where we want to be right now." - Peter Schomers, Head Coach, Kuwait Club

"It was a great environment. Great to come out with a victory. We came out strong and imposed defensively. That was the biggest thing for us: defense. And, containing [Kevin] Murphy and Duop [Reath]; trying to keep them off the glass as well. We executed the game plan. Happy to be in the championship." - Marcus Georges-Hunt, Kuwait Club

"First of all, congrats to Kuwait Club. They deserve this win. From the beginning, we knew that it's gonna be hard on us to play without our two point guards. We struggled offensively especially in shooting from outside. Kuwait, they had huge numbers from behind the arc -- 51-percent. I think we couldn't keep up the same rhythm the whole game, especially we're rotating seven players. So it was hard for us. But this loss will not define our season." - Ahmad El Farran, Head Coach, Al Riyadi

.FIBA