Defending champions Urban Knights and Majesty Gardens are set for a mouth-watering showdown in today's feature semi-final clash, in game one of their best-of-three series in the National Basketball League (NBL)/Flow All-Island competition at the National Stadium Courts, starting at 6:15 p.m.
In the other semi-final, Southern Conference champions Tivoli Gardens Wizards will oppose Manchester Pythons at 8:15 p.m.
The Knights, booked their spot in the semi-final with an easy 2-0 series win over Portland's Pure Playaz. However, they were beaten by Majesty Gardens in the Southern Conference semi-final but their coach, Calvin Martin, believes his team can turn the tables on their Kingston 11 rivals.
Hoping for the best
"I am hoping that we can come very focused and play the type of basketball that we know we are capable of playing because we are not worrying about who our opponents are, we just need to do what we can do," said Martin.
"I believe that once we rebound and take care of the ball then we should be able to come out on top in this series," he added. "However, they are a good team and we know that it is going to be a tough series."
The Knights will be depending heavily on the likes of Javon Bailey, Oneil Mundle and Andy Smith.
Meanwhile, Majesty Gardens, who were beaten by the Wizards in the final of the Southern Conference, secured their place in the semi-final with an exciting 73-72 overtime win over former champions St George's Slayers on Tuesday for a 2-0 series win.
Gutsy performance
Reflecting on his team's series victory over the Slayers, Marland Nattie, the coach of Majesty Gardens, said: "This was a very gutsy performance and this is what I wanted from my players at this stage of the competition."
Captain Baldon Todd led the way for Majesty Gardens with a game-high 24 points. Todd received good support from Kemar McLeish (15 points), Howard Daley (19 points, 10 rebounds) and Dushane White (15 points).
Regarding their semi-finals showdown, Nattie said his team will need to defend well against the Knights.
"We will have to be defensively strong against Urban Knights because they are strong team in terms of size and so we have to make sure that we block them out," said Nattie. "We know that we are capable of outscoring them but we just have to play good all-round defence."