Saturday 23 March 2013 – Worcester Wolves vs Manchester Giants

Worcester Wolves will play the second part of their weekend doubleheader this Saturday evening when they take on British Basketball League newcomers the Manchester Giants at the University of Worcester (tip off 7pm).

Wolves will look to complete a season sweep against the Giants, with Paul James’ team winning 92-80 at home in September and 88-75 on the road in February.

Wolves head into the week’s action in joint fourth place in the league with a 17-9 record and are still chasing a second successive top four spot, while Giants need a win to re-ignite their play-off push and are in joint tenth with nine wins from 28 games.

James is surprised the Manchester side hasn’t won more games: “The Giants have a good bunch of talented British players. They will probably feel that they should have done better than their results suggest, given the talent they have on the team. They have a few players who are able to have big scoring games for them so we will concentrate on them as a team.

“We played a complete game against them the last time we played. Our execution at both ends of the court was very good and we stuck to the job in hand for forty minutes. We will need to be at this level of performance again to get the result we want.”

Wolves recorded wins against Cheshire Phoenix and London Lions in their last two games, to leave James a happy man: “I thought we played one of our best games of the season against Cheshire. We dominated them from start to finish with great defence and then the best offensively executed game we have had all season.

“Against the Lions we were once again very good in parts and okay in others. We jumped out on them early and pretty much controlled the game from start to finish. It was a very good all-round team performance.”

Giants’ coach Jeff Jones expects the Wolves to do well in the post-season: “Wolves have come good as they have got settled and with a full complement of players they have to be one of the favourites for the play-offs in my opinion.

“The Americans have come into their own and have become a main consistent threat for them and their size inside is a problem for most teams. They present matchup problems for us all over the floor. What we have to do is reverse that on our offensive end of the floor and try and take advantage of our strengths and be very consistent.”

Wolves have a special ticket deal on offer for the visit of Manchester, with one child being admitted free with each full-paying adult.