THE DENHAM Town Wizards and Tivoli All-Stars secured their spots in the final four of the KFC/bmobile National Basketball League (NBL) following 2-0 series sweeps over the Blazing Panthers and Arnett Gardens Rockers at the National Stadium courts on Tuesday night.
Denham Town survived an early Panther onslaught and eventually triumphed 82-76.
"We started to lose focus, we lapsed so we lost our defensive intensity especially in transition," was the analysis of a disappointed Jason James, coach of the Blazing Panthers.
"They made a run and once they got into their running game it was hard to stop them, but this is a relatively new bunch of players," he said.
Leading the charge in the open court on transition was Wizards' top gun, Anthony Farquharson, who had 24 points and nine rebounds. He was well supported by Dwayne Harris who had 21 points.
Wizards coach Wayne Bartley, while not pleased with the way his team started, was glad to wrap up the series in two games.
STEPPED UP GAME
"We were sleeping early and did not play any defence, we weren't boxing out or rebounding, but we told them we have to treat everything as a finals and we picked it up," Bartley said.
It was close all the way between rivals Tivoli and Arnett Gardens, and though Tivoli stormed out to take the early lead, Arnett clawed their way back into the game and led 36-32 at the half-time interval. But they had no answers on the inside for the tough question posed in the form of Tivoli big man Duken Brown.
Brown, who missed the first game of the series, had 14 points, 10 of which came in the first quarter. Back-to-back threes and a three-point play for sharp shooter Jermaine Peart, who also had 14 points for Tivoli, saw the West Kingston team take a nine-point lead, a margin which Arnett Gardens was never able to make up.
