Upper Room Eagles, Urban Knights to contest NBL final
Published:Saturday | November 25, 2023 | 12:09 AMOrane Buchanan/Staff Reporter
THE 2023 National Basketball League (NBL) finals will be contested by the pair of Upper Room Eagles and Urban Knights as both teams registered series sweeps, 2-0, over their opponents on Thursday night at the National Stadium court.
The Upper Room Eagles defeated defending champions St George’s Slayers 77-73. The winners were led by Anthony White who had a game high 19 points and 20 rebounds while teammates D’Andre Forbes and Tyrese Jackson scored 17 and 12 points, respectively.
Simon Brown, head coach of the Upper Room Eagles team, shared that despite sweeping the series it was a tough assignment taking down the reigning champions.
“It had to be tough as we were playing against the defending champions with a national coach and experienced players who played on the national level. We had to dig ourselves out of the gutter in game two as we were behind for almost the entire game so we had to be patient, composed and allowed our defence to talk,” Brown explained.
Brown shared that heading into the final against Urban Knights it will involve finding out what their opponents are capable of while working on their own weaknesses.
“A good coaching plan has to have a mixture of both. When you look at the season, we’ve beaten every team and that includes Urban Knights which a lot of other teams can’t say and we’re proud of that. We made it to the mid-season final as underdogs and now to the NBL final as underdogs so it therefore means we have the ability to do well and win games,” said Brown.
For the Urban Knights team, they booked their spot in the final on the back of a 73-67 victory over the Portmore Flames. The Knights were led by Jadeja McCormack with 20 points and eight rebounds and Omar Barnes with 12 points, five rebounds and five steals.
Oniel Brown, head coach of the Urban Knights team, shared that in the final moments of the game it was important to insert the experienced players within the team to pull off the victory.
“We wanted to have experienced players on the court who had been there before, especially in a must-win game as they threw everything that they had,” the coach said.
Brown stated that in order to lift the trophy it will take mental toughness.
“It’s not physical any more and the team that makes the shift mentally will win it all,” he added.