Defending champion Tivoli Gardens Wizards denied Majesty Gardens Legends a clean sweep after they defeated them 70-52 in Game Two of the FLOW/National Basketball League (NBL) best-of-three final to level the series 1-1 at the National Indoor Sports Centre on Sunday.

The teams will now meet in the decisive Game Three for the NBL championship this Sunday at the same venue.

Tivoli, who trailed for most of the first half, received good contributions from all around.

Andrew Whilby led the scoring for the west Kingston side with a game-high 16 points and eight rebounds, followed by Anthony Farquharson with 14 points, Kirk Ferguson with 13 points and Delano Mallett with 12.

Boldon Todd was Majesty’s top-scorer with 13 points, with his best support coming from Kemar McLeish with 12 points.

Tivoli signalled their intention early in the game, but it was Majesty who eventually got into their game to dominate the early proceedings.

After Tivoli took the early lead, Majesty gained control soon afterwards and held a 14-12 lead at the end of the first quarter.

Majesty continued to have the better of their opponents at the start of the second quarter, but late in the spell, Tivoli nudged ahead to take a 27-22 advantage.

But the Legends rallied to regain the lead 29-27 at the half-time break.

However, after the half-time interval, Tivoli turned on the styles as Farquharson and Barnes spearheaded the Tivoli offence to great effect.

Midway the third period Tivoli were firmly in control of the match and didn’t show any signs of surrendering their lead.

They eventually took the period, 21-15, to take a clear four-point (48-44) lead going into the final stanza.

Tivoli’s impressive third quarter display seemed to have knocked the wind out of Majesty, which led to a dreadful final quarter by the Three Miles-based club.

They went on to lose the final period disappointingly, 8-22, to go down to a 18-point defeat.

Victorious coach Edward ‘Ted’ Marshall said winning the match the way his team did was very satisfying.

“In the first-half only one player was really playing up to scratch… but we talked about it going into the second half and we improved and won the game,” he said.

Majesty Gardens’ Ludlow Barker said his players lost their composure after a couple of bad calls and allowed the game to slip away.

“We lost our composure and now we are forced to play a game three,” he said. But for that game (three) we need to go back to the plan of the first game, stick to it, stay disciplined and we will pull it off,” he said.