AL AHLI court general Hussain Shaker says that his team needs to get off to a good start tonight in order to beat bitter rivals Manama and tie their best-of-five championship series at one game apiece.
Manama drew first blood in the finals with an 86-79 victory in Game One last Thursday. Ahli had a poor first quarter in the contest, scoring just 11 points the entire period and already facing a double-digit deficit early on. Still, they were able to fight back towards the end and almost upset their rivals.
Ahli will be hoping to bounce back tonight in game two at the Khalifa Sports City arena in Isa Town. Tip-off is scheduled for 7.15pm.
“I think we should have a good start,” Shaker told the GDN last night after being asked what they need to do to bounce back.
Mistakes
“We must also reduce our mistakes. Manama are a big team and you cannot have many mistakes against a team like them.”
Shaker says that his team has prepared well for game two and they are confident they can knot things up at 1-1. “If we reach the game ready, we can bounce back,” he said.
Meanwhile, Manama official and former team captain Nooh Najaf says his team is well-prepared for tonight’s clash and he is hopeful of taking a two-game lead.
“Over the past couple of days we have been working hard on what we did wrong from game one and on not repeating those mistakes,” he said. “We are ready for this game. We expect Ahli to come out stronger, and we have prepared for that.”
Manama are gunning for their fifth league title in a row and 21st overall.