COACH PJ A WORD FROM

Good afternoon and welcome to the Pavilions for today’s BBL championship game against Manchester Giants. The giants are coached Vince Macaulay, assisted by Nigel Lloyd.

Coach Macaulay has put together an extremely talented team, which sees them sitting 5th in the BBL Championship now with a 12-11.

They have plenty of BBL talent and experience in their roster with the likes of William Lee, Nick Lewis, Corey Johnson, Callum Jones, Dirk Williams, Legend Robertin and Rahmon Fletcher, all of whom have played in the BBL previously.

Last week, we had the perfect weekend in terms of what we needed as a team in relation to our league position and solidifying that as well as creating a little separation from those teams who sit currently below us in the league table.

I was really pleased with the way we showed great composer in both games and especially in the overtime periods where we executed very well at both ends of the floor. Two very solid team performances, so I hope we can continue in this form.

It is going to be a little harder now that we are going to be without Bell after this game. He has been great around the club on and off the court. I believe Bell has a very high ceiling if he chooses to really get after it. He has provided us many highlights this season and he will be missed.

I have been looking at potential replacement players as the season is far from over and we need to try and make sure that we stay in the running for a playoff position.

If we can achieve this goal after all the turmoil, we have had this season, we would have all done an amazing job, including you, our brilliant supporters! Today, Manchester is a team that love to play an up-tempo fast game, the faster the better for them. We will need to be excellent again in our transition defence today and try and control the tempo of the game.

I extend a warm welcome to the Manchester coaching staff and players for this BBL championship match.