Leicester Riders won the BBL Cup final, beating a spirited Manchester Giants team 83-69 in Birmingham.
Riders guard Geno Crandall was named most valuable player for his 26 points and Kimbal Mackenzie added 15. Tyrik Armstrong had 18 points for the Giants.
Leicester led by as many as 19 points but were never entirely sure of victory against a team that rebounded and defended well despite being underdogs.
The Riders, unbeaten in the league, are now on course for a double this season.
Manchester made the better start, with the Great Britain pairing of Josh Steel and Dan Clark contributing 12 points in an 18-9 run to start the game.
The Riders had their first lead at the start of the second quarter and when they followed up with an 18-4 run to close the first half – with Crandall scoring nine points in that run – Leicester were 17 points ahead with Giants having scored just eight points in the second quarter.
Manchester stayed in the game with a third-quarter run to close to within nine points when Crandall took a breather.
His return brought him six more points. That, along with MacKenzie’s two three-pointers, kept the Giants at bay and gave the Riders their first Cup win since 2014.
“They kept coming – we did a good job of stopping them on the day because they average in the 90s,” said Leicester coach Rob Paternostro. “We talked about making it a low-scoring game because that’s worked for us in finals before.”
“Some shots started to fall for me in the second quarter,” said Crandall. “Then my guys trusted me enough to keep giving me the ball. And they also told me to keep being aggressive.”
Manchester coach Lloyd Gardner said: “We’re frustrated that we got down that much but I thought we showed a good effort.
“As an overall body of work we’re pleased with it – we’re proud of what we did today and we have to carry on working to, well to be like Leicester basically, to be consistent in excellence.”
