DEFENDING champions Tivoli Wizards and last season’s beaten finalists Majesty Legends will square-off for the FLOW/National Basketball League title in the decisive Game Three of the finals this evening at the National Arena at 5:00 pm.

Majesty dominated Game One to come away easy winners, and looked set to run away with Game Two before the champions turned the table in the second half to emerge 70-52 victors.

The stage is now set for a grand finale and both coaches have expressed confidence in lifting the coveted title this evening.

Tivoli’s Edward ‘Ted’ Marshall said after beating their opponents three times — once in the regular season and twice for a 2-0 series win for the Southern Conference title — over-confidence cost his team to lose the first of the three-game final series.

However, he believes they have recovered their discipline and will apply themselves in the correct manner to win this evening’s game.

“We have played this team a lot of times and we know how to stop them. This is the final game of the series; we know what to do to stop them and lift the championship,” he told the Sunday Observer.

Edwards said with the momentum now behind his team, they intend to come out harder than they have ever had this season.

“This is the final game, and we just want to play and do as well as we can and win the game,” he said.

His counterpart Ludlow Barker believes his team started the series on the right note and said they will revisit the plan they used for Game One.

“We will be disciplined, we’ll stick to the plan and see how it works out,” he said.

“But right now it’s a mental battle as we can’t afford to lose this, so mentally we have to get back right in it, but we are up for the challenge,” he declared.

Barker said although they had a number of training sessions disrupted by the weather this week, he believes they have done enough to prepare for the encounter.

“Tivoli is a confident team, they are the champions, so you cannot allow them to run the floor, but we will have to take care of the basketball on our end and take care of the goals as well,” he insisted.

In Game Two, Tivoli attain victory through an all-round team performance with Anthony Farquharson, Kirk Ferguson, Andrew Whilby, Omar Barnes and Delano Mallett coming good for the West Kingston team.

Tivoli will be hoping those players can rise to the occasion with a repeat of that display this evening.

On the other hand, Majesty’s results are always heavily dependent on the performance of Boldon Todd and Kemar McLeish, with Damion Young and Hovando Dunn providing good support.

Todd and McLeish will have to be at their absolute best, while the others will need to make valuable contributions if they hope to upstage their rivals and wrest the title from the seven-time national champions.

“This is also one community against another community so there is a lot of pressure on both teams,” added Barker.