BBL Championship Game 2010

The Everton Tigers had come up against perennial opponents, Newcastle Eagles. Which way was this one going to go? Unfortunately I could not be at Game 1 as the Sheffield Sharks were also at home in Sheffield taking on the Glasgow Rocks.

Following the scores as they were coming in from Greenbank it was astonishing as the Tigers were destroying the Newcastle Eagles. Every announcement of the latest score from Merseyside saw the Sheffield crowd giving out whoops of delight.

Now many people will have been surprised by this performance by the Tigers, but I’m afraid I was not one of those people.

I was lucky enough to be commentating on their Play-Off encounter with the Cheshire Jets a week earlier and the Cheshire boys did not have an answer as the Tigers comfortably blew them away. The Tigers have been threatening performances like this for some time but now that they had their full quota of players following returns from injuries, they were ready to make their play for the big one – the BBL Play-Off Championship Final.

At Sheffield on this Friday night the Sharks were quite comfortable against the Glasgow Rocks until a great fight back by the Rocks saw them going down by just 3 points. Was that going to be enough? Only time would tell!

The game at Greenbank finished with the sensational scoreline of 95-79. Was this a fluke? Could the Tigers go to Newcastle and repeat this performance?

Well this was no fluke and yes they could repeat this performance in Newcastle. Every Tigers player who took to the court did the job that Head Coach Tony Garbelotto asked them to do. The back court of Bell and Moore were awesome and so was Olu Babalola, James Jones and the rest. In game 2 the Eagles, with all of their fire power, had absolutely no answer as they went down again, amazingly by exactly the same score.

The Tigers had got past their fiercest rivals and were going to the Play-Off Championship Final. But who would they meet? The Sharks had defeated the Rocks in the first leg but only by 3 points and would have to win in Scotland or lose by fewer than 3.

It was not to be for the Sharks as the Rocks came together to get a famous victory which would see them take their place in the Final.

And so we are gathered here at the NIA Birmingham for the BBL Play-Off Championship Game. This is the first time in a number of years that this game is a one-night affair. In recent years the Championship Weekend saw the semi-finals on the Saturday nigh with the Championship Final on the Sunday, but this was a whole new world.

The day would begin officially with the 2010 Team Colours All-Star Game which would see a BBL Great Britain team taking on the Rest of the World (ROW). The GB team will be coached by Gary Stronach, formerly of the Plymouth Raiders while the ROW will have Rob Paternostro of the Leicester Riders, at the helm. There is now an agreement that players from the teams competing in the Championship Final were not allowed to take part in the All-star game. However following the semi-finals it meant the players from the top two teams in the BBL this season, Newcastle and Sheffield would be able to pull on the colours.

This was going to be a truly joyous occasion. It would also see some interesting match-ups, with mikeshaft.com joint BBL Players of the Year Mike Cook and Tafari ‘TAP’ Toney coming up against each other.

I could not wait!

Later

Mike S