MANGILAO (Guam) - Lin Ting-Chien comes up in the clutch to clinch an aggregate win for Chinese Taipei over Guam, 85-77 and to qualify the East Asian country for an impressive 18th consecutive FIBA Asia Cup.

Chinese Taipei lost the first of two match-ups in the Qualifying Tournament for third-ranked teams 77-72, but the 8-point win in the second game meant that they would be the ones traveling to Jakarta next year.

Guam started the game in control with sharpshooters Takumi Simon and Mark Johnson firing away on point. Both marksmen combined for 33 points on 9 three-pointers throughout the course of the game.

However, Chinese Taipei increased the intensity on the defensive end in the latter stages of the game. The visiting teams defense forced Guam into committing 17 turnovers which were converted into 20 points that played a big part in building up their aggregate lead.

The game took twists and turns in the waning minutes as the two teams danced around the lines of the aggregate score. Chinese Taipei held an aggregate lead by as much as 4 points with less than two minutes to go, but Guam fought their way back and tied things up with under one minute to go.

With the fate of both teams up in the air in the final 20 seconds, Lin Ting-Chien took matters into his own hands and drained a cold-blooded midrange jumper to give his team the aggregate lead for good. Lin had limped off the floor missed out the latter parts of the first game, but Chinese Taipei were definitely happy to see him back on the court in this game.

In just his second game playing at the senior national team level for Chinese Taipei, Lin scored 26 points on 8-13 shooting with 3 three-pointers.

Chinese Taipei now join Indonesia, Lebanon, Bahrain, Philippines, Korea, China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Kazakhstan, India, and, Saudi Arabia to complete the 16-team field of FIBA Asia Cup 2021.

The FIBA Asia Cup is scheduled to take place in July 2022.

FIBA