Bristol Flyers ended their BBL Championship campaign with two wins from two in the final weekend of the regular season, securing wins over Surrey Scorchers and Sheffield Sharks.
Flyers comfortably dismantled Scorchers in an 87-70 win at SGS College Arena, before hitting the road and closing out a 73-65 triumph over their Playoff rivals Sharks. This means Flyers finish the season with their best-ever record of 25 wins and 11 losses, with third spot already secured.
"It’s our best ever finish in league play, the most wins that we’ve ever got in a BBL season," said Flyers head coach Andreas Kapoulas. "Starting the season, we finished fourth last year, and people had low expectations of us.
"We’ve surpassed expectations and it’s not an easy thing to do in this league. We’re a young team, and to be able to do it the way we performed throughout the course of the year speaks volumes of the types of guys that we have."
Flyers started strong against the Scorchers, getting out to an early double-digit advantage in the opening six minutes of the game. Their smothering defence over the visitors allowed them opportunity to run the ball in transition and pile on the early points.
Jelani Watson-Gayle led the Bristol offence coming off the bench with an electric scoring display, making an instant impact when checking into the game. He torched the defence from mid-range and shot over 50 percent from the field to finish with his 21 points.
Flyers’ 14-point lead after the first quarter forced Surrey to come out and try to reel the hosts back in, with American guard Josh McFolley looking to force the issue. The second quarter for the Scorchers was better as they found ways to break down the Flyers defence, but defensive problems of their own allowed Flyers to stay ahead and extend out to a 16-point lead at half-time.
Bristol continued to force turnovers throughout the second half, with their offence proving too strong for Surrey. They built up to their biggest lead of 26 in the third quarter, and despite Surrey outscoring them in the fourth; Flyers cruised to a comfortable 17-point win to kick off the weekend.
Bristol’s visit to the Steel City was just the challenge they needed heading into the play-offs; up against a team who found themselves in good form in the latter stage of the season, coming into the tie with nine wins out of their last 10 games.
Flyers had another strong start. Having traded buckets with the Sharks, they built out to a 10-point lead to end the first quarter against one of the stronger defences in the league. Malcolm Delpeche had an efficient start, coming up against his twin brother Marcus; Watson-Gayle again made a statement from the bench with a couple of quick, early baskets on his way 19 points.
Bristol maintained their lead going into the second half after a neck-and-neck second quarter, but in the third the scoring slowed up for both teams who each ramped up their defensive quality. A combined total of 24-points were scored in the period.
The teams came out flying in the fourth and went shot-for-shot, before a little scoring stretch from Sheffield saw them reduce the difference to single-figures thanks to Devearl Ramsey and Rodney Glasgow. Flyers stood strong and never allowed the hosts to threaten, taking the game by seven points and grabbing their third consecutive win heading into the play-offs.
The weekend’s results mean that Flyers will take on Manchester Giants in the first round of the BBL Playoffs, with the first leg of the quarter-finals taking place on Thursday at the National Basketball Performance Centre, before returning to SGS College for Sunday’s second leg. The winner of the tie will be decided by aggregate points across both legs of the round.
On the confirmation of his side’s playoff opponents, Kapoulas added: “It’s a quick turnaround, we know it’s going to be a tough battle against Manchester across two legs. We’ve got to rest our bodies and be ready to go.
"We wanted to finish the regular season strong; like we started it. Our focus was to go into the play-offs with momentum. Getting three wins going into the play-offs will be good for confidence."
