South Dragons' miserable start to the NBL season continued on Saturday as they let slip an 11-point advantage against cross-town rivals Melbourne Tigers to fall 101-98 and remain winless.

It was a magnificent effort by the Tigers to reel in a double-digit deficit late in the third quarter in a match of high quality at the State Netball and Hockey Centre in Melbourne.

The Tigers drew within a basket with a tick under four and a half minutes to go and as the lead changed five times down the stretch, it was a David Barlow three-pointer with 35 seconds remaining that got them ahead 99-95.

Jacob Holmes landed one from the carpark with 16.5 seconds on the clock, but Melbourne hung on to stay perfect with a 6-0 win-loss record.

The result is a devastating blow for South, who fall to 0-4 and face a red-hot Sydney Kings outfit on Sunday afternoon.

Melbourne had five players in double-figure scoring, led by man-mountain Chris Anstey (19 points, seven rebounds) and the sweet shooting Daryl Corletto, who had 15 points.

For the Dragons, Holmes led all scorers with 22 points, including 6-of-10 from downtown and Joe Ingles had 20 points.

If the first half had the sold-out crowd of 3500 pumped, the last half had them in a frenzy as the match went up a couple more gears and invoked the memories of past derbies.

In a thrilling third term that saw the lead change hands six times in the space of four minutes, it was the bottom-of-the-ladder Dragons who made the decisive break.

As he did on Boxing Day last year, Ingles came alive in the third term, knocking down shots at will and finding ways to get to the basket where none seemed available.

His 10 third-period points got the Dragons back from a five-point half-time deficit before a 14-5 run to end the term gave the visitors a 82-73 edge at the last break.

Matt Burston, in the starting five ahead of import Nick Horvath, provided the bulk of the first-half highlights, sparking the Dragons to an early seven-point advantage.

Burston, who hardly played last year due to a foot injury, was on fire with eight first-quarter points on the way to a game-high 15 at the half.

But despite his efforts, Melbourne's deep lineup reeled in the early deficit to hold a 29-26 edge at quarter-time which they extended to five, 55-50 at the main break.

South Dragons playing-coach Shane Heal said the loss was extremely hard to take.

"We put a lot of emotion into this game tonight," Heal said.

"This was a real character test for us and I thought the guys met the challenge and we put ourselves in a position to be able to win ... we just didn't execute when it counted.

"We felt like we had their measure in the second half and that's disappointing."

Tigers coach Al Westover admitted things "didn't look too good there for a while", but was pleased they were able to lift defensively in the final term.

"You've got to give credit where credit's due. The Dragons were executing and picking us apart, shooting from the perimeter and causing all sorts of defensive worries for us," Westover said.

"If we're going to be a team that competes for a championship or hopefully wins a championship, you've got to make the big plays at big times and we did that."

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP