TN ready to make a Final play-off bid
TEAM Northumbria face Sheffield Hatters on Saturday confident of upsetting the form book and making the Final Fours of the 2018 WBBL play-offs.
A narrow 78-73 defeat against Nottingham Wildcats in the club’s final fixture of the regular season was never going to affect TN’s sixth-placed finish.
Third-placed Sheffield will now host Chris Bunten’s side in South Yorkshire in what already looks the pick of the quarter-final ties.
TN’s coach saw the trip to Nottingham as the perfect opportunity to prepare for a tough clash in Sheffield.
Bunten came away from the East Midlands in buoyant mood despite a four-point loss.
He said: “The performance was a million times better than the previous week’s defeat to the bottom club London Lions.
“We played great but we just had too many turnovers.
“I think we had 19 turnovers in the game from which Nottingham scored 20 points.
“We could have managed to bring the game back but for some careless mistakes which led to really easy baskets for them.
“We have had a turbulent season but the play-offs start this weekend and a performance like that against a top team like Nottingham is a massive positive.
“I am very happy with most of what we did but we just need to tighten a few things up.”
He added: “I said before the game we were going to use it as a training game for next week, meaning the result was never that relevant.
“We used a lot of stuff against Nottingham we are going to take into the game against Sheffield and we did that well.
“We are confident going into the play-offs. We know we can beat anyone on our day and I think we have beaten almost every team in the league already – so we know we can do it.
“We just need to be that little bit more consistent.
“It is going to be hard beating Sheffield at their own place and it is a tough ask - but we did it last season and we can do it again.”