Sunday 06 April 2014 Manchester Giants 86-94 Worcester Wolves

Worcester Wolves managed to avoid the potential banana skin of a Manchester Giants side battling hard to secure an end-of-season play-off spot. Sunday afternoon’s 94-86 success made it a double weekend of wins for the Wolves, following Friday’s victory over Durham Wildcats.

Matters looked reasonably comfortable for Worcester over the first part of the match, but they were never able to totally quell the Manchester resistance. The host’s tenacity finally paid off as they edged into a one point lead at the start of the fourth quarter. It took a fine late display of outside shooting from Zaire Taylor to enable Wolves to regain the advantage, and keep the Giants at arm’s length until the end.

For the second game in a row Will Creekmore was the Wolves’ centre of attention. Captain Alex Owumi initiated the scoring with a triple from the right corner of the court and Creekmore did likewise shortly after. Former Worcester favourite David Watts nailed a couple of early scores, but had to watch both Owumi and Creekmore increase their personal tally. As the hooter sounded to close the first quarter, Creekmore sank a three-pointer to help his team to a 25-21 lead.

Taylor opened his scoring account after finding his way around Manchester’s much-shorter point guard Stefan Gill. When Creekmore found himself totally unguarded to slam the ball through the hoop with two hands it was the signal for Giants’ coach Jeff Jones to seek a time out, trailing 34-42 with three minutes to go until the interval.

Still in arrears by half-time, at 39-48, the urgings of their coach finally seemed to take effect. Great Britain guard James Jones made a deuce of baskets in the first minute to close matters to 44-48, and a few minutes later it was even tighter at 54-56, following a double of conversions for March’s BBL Player of the Month Rob Marsden.

Marsden was on target again to level the afternoon at 63-63 with 30 seconds remaining in the third quarter, before another Owumi three quietened the revived home support. However, the volume was soon turned back up when a bucket from Gill put the hosts’ noses in front for the first time at 69-68 at eight minutes left in the contest.

A less-resilient team than the one that is representing Worcester this season could have folded after a bizarre   incident with five minutes of the afternoon remaining. Creekmore had just converted the last of his game-high 33 points when he over-reached for a ball that was going out of bounds. As he followed the ball over the end-line, he stumbled to the floor over a courtside advertising hoarding. Expressing his frustration as he rose back to his feet, he was swiftly awarded a technical foul by the referees for voicing his displeasure.

Gill made one of the two resultant foul shots and sank a long-distance attempt on the subsequent possession, leaving his side poised just a single point behind the visitors at 77-78. With Wolves’ big man now seated on the bench, the focus of play switched to the smaller positions, with Taylor stepping to the fore. Once the Giants had finished seeing Taylor nailing a trio of three-pointers, they then had to deal with the emergence of the Williams brothers, Jamal and Kai, who put up nine quick points between them to seal the victory.

Coach Paul James was relieved to see out the win, saying: “Every time we play Manchester they really get after us, playing some great basketball. We had to work hard again today. We did well in the first half, but lost our focus for a while after that. Down the stretch the team came together again with Zaire helping us out by making some remarkable shots.”

Looking at other individual performances, James was delighted with another strong showing from Creekmore, remarking: “Will’s had a great weekend. If teams can’t match up to him, then we’ll keep feeding him.”

Ex-Worcester duo Callum Jones and David Watts put forward tidy displays, with 13 and 11 points respectively, and James gave credit to the pair, commenting: “They looked very comfortable out there. Giants play a nice brand of team basketball and it’s good to see them fitting in so nicely.”

Taylor and Owumi were joint-second highest scorers for Wolves on 21 points, with Gill tallying a similar score for Manchester. Next up for the Wolves will be a trip to London Lions this Thursday, before returning to the University of Worcester Arena the next day to face Leicester Riders.