Jamaica Gleaner
Published: Tuesday | November 17, 2009
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Majesty, Wizards seek clinchers
Robert Bailey, Gleaner Writer

Majesty Gardens and Tivoli Gardens Wizards will be looking to secure their spots in the National Basketball League (NBL)/Flow Southern Conference final when they oppose defending champions, Urban Knights, and St Georges Slayers respectively, in Game Two of the aggregate semi-finals tonight at the Stadium Courts.

In the curtain-raiser at 6:15 p.m., Wizards will oppose the Slayers and Majesty tackle the Knights at 8 p.m.

In last Saturday's opening games, Majesty, led by a game-high 41 points from former national Under-19 representative, Kemar McLeish, defeated the Knights 73-66. The Wizards beat Slayers 86-79. Majesty trailed the Knights 54-47 going into the fourth quarter. McLeish received solid support from captain Baldon Todd, 20 points and eight rebounds.

"We just have to come out and play a better game than we did on Saturday," said Marland Nattie, coach of Majesty, who were knocked out at the semi-final stage last year.

Focus on offence

Nattie said his team must begin defensively strong, execute on the offence and ensure they play a disciplined game for the entire 40-minutes.

Meanwhile, Gordon Porter, manager of the Knights, said they would be placing a lot of emphasis on offence in order for them to secure the victory.

"I think that we are going to have to significantly improve our scoring in order for us to win this match," said Porter.

"We also need to be a lot more consistent defensively, because we have to make sure that we rebound and block out properly, and once we improve in these areas, then we should be able to achieve the desired result," said Porter, who is also the president of the Knights.

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