The Manchester Giants will be looking to spoil the Caledonia Gladiators’ Christmas season when they travel up to Scotland on Boxing Day for the British Basketball League.
Caledonia will be riding high with their performance so far this season, that sees them in second place, only behind last year’s champions London Lions.
Manchester sit just outside the Playoff spots and will have nothing to lose going into this tough away game.
Naughty or nice
The two teams are on opposites ends of the League standings, with the Gladiators second and the Giants second from bottom.
Despite that, both sides are coming off tough losses that they will want to avenge.
The Scots will be keen to put last week’s shock defeat to the Plymouth City Patriots behind them quickly.
They’ve won three of their last five and know that another victory will solidify their position in the top four.
The Giants also suffered a tough loss last week, falling to fellow Playoff hopefuls Leicester Riders.
This will be the first of two games for both teams over the course of three days as Caledonia will welcome the London Lions and Manchester will face off against the Cheshire Phoenix.
This could result in managed minutes between the two squads as Coach Murray and Coach Semonian will be looking to get two wins out of two.
Revenge or three-peat
The two teams have played each other already twice this season.
On both occasions the Gladiators came out on top, first in Gameweek 1 winning 79-97 away and then in Gameweek 13 defeated the Giants 86-80 at home.
To avoid a third loss Manchester need to be at the top of their game and restrict Caledonia’s offence, primarily their two top scorers Patrick Whelan and Ian DuBose who are averaging 15.2 and 15.1 points per game respectively.
The two teams have very similar offensive output, with the fifth and sixth highest points per game on average.
That could result in a close game decided by fine margins, like their previous meeting earlier this month when there was just six points in it.
The fine margins, along with the fact that both sides are fighting for either home court advantage or a Playoff spot means that this could be very close, with everything left on the court.
To watch this game of the 2023/24 British Basketball League season, tune in to YouTube on Tuesday, December 26 at 3:00pm GMT.
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