Winner takes it all

It’s winner takes all at Wright Robinson College on Friday as both teams look to take the eighth and final spot in the post-season.

Giants are a win behind Lions with an 11-20 record, and have a game in hand, but with the season series tied at 1-1 the winner of Friday’s game will have the all-important head-to-head decider and will be assured of a two-leg quarter-final tie against regular season champions Jelson Homes DMU Leicester Riders.

“It’s a massive game for us, and the whole season is riding on one game” said Gill. “It’s almost like a new season, as we’re already in one-and-done, and it could go on for six games.”

“Regardless of their defeat against Leicester we still both have some work to do, but it couldn’t be better for us with them having to play on Wednesday and Friday’s game being at our place. So we want to take advantage of that.”

Gill joined BBL new-boys Giants in the summer from the Lions, and he is looking forward to matching up against his old side: “Yeah, it’s an added incentive of playing against the ex-boss, but it’s not about that.

They’re standing the way of where we want to be – in the play-offs.

“We have to control the penetration from Tayo [Ogedengbe] and Orlan [Jackman] but we also need to contain Adrien Sturt’s three points. He lit us up for 31 points last time, so we know what we have to do.

I think we can handle Mike Martin, because we have Ben Eaves, David Aliu and Mike Bernard, so it’s the other areas we have to concentrate on.”

Since the Giants and Lions last met the London side have added Rod Brown, and Gill admits to having only limited knowledge of the dual national point guard: “We played against him in his first game for Plymouth, but he really wasn’t in game shape, so we haven’t had a chance to see what he can do.”

“I know from their recent results they’ve crept up on teams, and we can’t take them lightly.

We barely won last time and they play with a lot of energy. They spread the scoring around, and we need to stop their passing as they do a lot of cutting and moving off the ball.”

Tip-off at Wright Robinson College on Friday evening is 7.30pm.

Photo Vince – David Howe

Story – BBL