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Australia win wheelchair basketball title

Australia's men's wheelchair basketballers have successfully defended their world championship crown with a tense victory over the United States.

Although they dominated for most of the final played in the South Korean city of Incheon on Monday, the Rollers only regained the lead in the last quarter and hung on for a 63-57 win.

Tristan Knowles finished with a game-high 17 points and found support in the form of Shaun Norris (11 points and six rebounds), Justin Eveson (11 points, nine rebounds and four assists) and Bill Latham (eight points and six rebounds).

Australia raced to a 22-13 lead at quarter-time, which ballooned out to 12 points - the biggest margin of the game - on the back of a Tristan Knowles three-point bomb to start the second quarter.

The lead was slowly whittled away by the US, who had beaten the Rollers earlier in the tournament.

With Australia taking a 31-27 advantage into halftime, the US continued to pressure the 2010 world champions and they took the lead for the first time in the game midway through the third quarter.

However, the Rollers showed poise to go on 13-7 run in the final five minutes to seal victory.

"I'm absolutely exhilarated," Australian Rollers head coach Ben Ettridge said.

"I've got the 12 best guys in the world and I'm so happy for them. I'm proud of the guys, they're amazing and they have done a great job.

"We pride ourselves on our defence and that's what won it. We gave them nothing. We made them shoot from the perimeter and it was our defence that won it."