Giants Eliminated from playoffs in heart break ending.

Written by Kyle Campbell

The Manchester Giants Entered the BBL playoffs after being ranked the 5th best team over the 27 game season. This saw them matchup against 4th place Bristol Flyers who were led to a record of 14-13 by star point guard Marcus Edwards. In regular season meetings Bristol seemed to have the better of the Giants with 2 20+ victories throughout the course of the season. With both teams finishing on the same record and the back and fourth games in the regular season this was speculated to be a very close series with no outright favourite. The format for the playoffs this year meant the first game would be hosted in Manchester with an aggregate score over two games deciding which team would go through to the semi finals.

The first game was held at the Giants Belle Vue stadium on April 28th. On the back of a hot start the Giants led the game 54-41 at HT and remained in steady control for the rest of the game. The key players in this game for the Giants were McKnight 22 points and 5 assists and Tyrik Armstrong 15 points and 13 assists. A lot of players played well in this game however with Ulph, Artison and Whelan all putting up over 10 points. I was able to get down to this game and watching from the stands David Ulph was someone who stood out to me as he seemed to be dominating off the boards and seemed to make every contested put back shot he attempted. Some Photographs I was able to take from the game are available here https://www.instagram.com/p/CdakWKEs1aR/ .

The players that kept Bristol firmly in this tie were firstly Zach Simmons who was able to register 20 points and 5 rebounds in only 24 minutes off the bench. Another was American guard Trejon Jacob who also added a further 20 points. The full time score ended 91-79 to the Giants meaning in the away game at Bristol Any result less than a 13 point loss would see the Giants advance. considering the team hadn't made the play-offs since 2014 a first win back in the competition was a very good start for the home team.

The second game had it all to play for and showcased a guard vs guard matchup of Armstrong who put up 30 points and Miller who put up not only 33 points but what turned out to be the game winning shot. In the match summary the statistics are very similar with the Flyers slightly edging the giants on most things such as 2p%. By analysing the play by play chart its visible that the second quarter was where it went wrong for the giants where they surrendered a 13 point deficit at one point which ended at a 9 point by HT. This game came down to the wire in the final few minutes with the score being 90-80 with 1:30 left on the clock meaning a back and fourth motion took place where whichever team scored last were the ones to go through. This turned into a real tactical battle between the two coaches and whilst being 14 points down Giants fans thought Coach Lloyd Gardner had done it when he called a timeout with 7 seconds left and created a play which saw star play Armstrong driving right towards the open basket. that until ...

Bristol's number 22 Malcolm Delpeche came out of no where to swat the ball away from the basket and secure Flyers win in the very last play of the game. This was one of the amazing basketball moments in recent BBL history in my opinion and I thoroughly recommend checking out the highlights available on YouTube here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KClq7r0p0Oc

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