THE British League play-offs start this weekend and Worcester Wolves are once again determined to finish as the last team standing.
The league shows who has been the most consistent team throughout the season but the play-offs are like another mini series and everybody wants to win it.
You want to go into the summer having been the last team standing and last year we were that team.
It carries a lot of prestige, it’s great for the fans and with this year’s final being at the O2 Arena, the games are even more important.
I think it is wide open and any team can win through to the next round. We take on London Lions at the University Arena tomorrow, with the away leg on Sunday.
We have been playing really well of late coming into this weekend so we’ll be playing with a lot of confidence.
We have played London three times this season and lost two to one but we haven’t really been at full strength when we’ve played them and know we can do so much better.
After home wins against Newcastle Eagles, Glasgow Rocks and Leicester Riders, I think we’re ready for it — that sequence was almost like a play-off battle in itself.
Players like Alex Owumi, Jamal Williams and Kalil Irving know what it’s about, they know this is sudden death now.
They went through it last year and know what it took for us to get to the final and then win it.
Hopefully, along with myself, we can pass that experience on to the other players and the importance of it. It’s not a joke, we either win and go through or that’s it, our season is done.
We want to still be playing basketball for a couple more weeks yet.
No stone can be left unturned and the players can’t be left wishing they had done more, they have to give it everything in all the games.
Winning is a habit and we finished the regular season with two good victories against Leicester (77-67) and Durham Wildcats (110-79).
It was important that we put on a good show for the fans against Leicester and I thought we did that.
Against Durham, with them out of the play-offs and knowing we were going to finish third, it would have been quite easy to take our foot off the pedal and just go through the motions but it was a really professional performance.
I was really proud of the way the guys applied themselves and it was our biggest margin of victory this season.
It was a long trip for what you might call a dead rubber but my message beforehand was making sure we came out the game feeling we had played to the best of our ability going into the play-offs.
I couldn’t have asked for anything more from my players.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here