C J Burton buried a big 3-pointer to beat the buzzer in Australia's 81-78 win over Angola on Thursday at the Diamond Cup men's basketball tournament, which served as a warm-up for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Australia, which beat China 67-55 on Wednesday, finished first in the group, ahead of China and Angola.

Argentina defeated Serbia 75-60 to top the other group.

On Friday, Australia will face Argentina in the final of the tournament.

China and Iran will vie for the third place with Serbia and Angola fighting for the fifth.

Milwaukee Bucks' center Andrew Bogut had a game-high 32 points and 11 rebounds for Australia.

Olimpio Cipriano led Angola with 23 points and Eduardo Mingas added 20 points and eight rebounds. Joaquim Gomes scored 17 points and grabbed seven rebounds.

Entering the decisive quarter 59-all, Angola scored five straight points to lead 67-61.

Bogut scored 12 points in the fourth quarter to put Australia ahead for a brief time.

Bogut's three-point play leveled the game 78-78 with 45 seconds to go. As the clock was running down, Burton drilled the ball to the left wing and took the shot with one step away from the arc.

In the Argentina-Serbia game, Chicago Bulls' Andres Nocioni encouraged a 9-0 run in the late third quarter to put the South Americans into the driving seat, as he grabbed three straight defensive rebounds and one steal.

Manu Ginobili of the San Antonio Spurs secured Argentina's victory after scoring eight straight points to make it 73-58 with 1:49 to go.

"This is my best game (after coming back from injury) if we talk about the whole 40-minute match, because I played half a game last time against Spain," said Ginobili, who had 18 points.

"I'm getting better, but still looking for my best," added Ginobili.

Serbia had put up some trouble in the first half as the lead was exchanged for several times before Argentina went ahead 35-34 at the break.

(Xinhua News Agency August 1, 2008)