The Manchester Giants bypass the Surrey Scorchers at the National Basketball Performance Centre. Lloyd Gardner’s men win the bout 85-67.

‍The Giants’ penultimate home game of the season saw them take on the Surrey Scorchers. Both teams were coming off the back of a loss with one getting back to winning ways by the final buzzer.

Tonight's game started off with a bang! Captain Jack Hudson drives to the paint, lays it up and Geno Artison slams it down on the put-back. The Giants converted back to back offensive possessions as Martaveous McKnight converted from deep. Captain Jack wasn't done there as Dan Clark found Hudson on the backdoor cut to convert a tough layup.

The Giants were scoring early and often in this game as Dan Clark converted from close range followed by a Geno Artison 3 ball from the wing, giving the giants a healthy lead. Artison kept the three ball raining down on Surrey as he converted another from the top of the key. The three ball seemed to be the way to go as the Giants converted 62% of their threes as they led the quarter 31-15 over the scorchers. A pair of Jordan Whelan free throws kicked off the Giants second half scoring.

A slower second quarter started to ignite after another Martaveous McKnight three ball. Kingsley Kwagboso gets early minutes and gets stuck into it, battling on the offensive boards and even grabbing some points of his own after he converted a tough lay up down low. A more defensive quarter to end the first half with only 24 points scored between both teams, ending in a 44-27 point lead to the Giants. Dan Clark converted close and got the third quarter underway as he converted at close range after Geno Artison lobbed it up to the British big man.

The Giants continued to convert offensively, after a back and forth between Geno Artison and Devin Thomas trading fouls, the Giants big man showed off his athleticism to drive past the Scorcher and convert the reverse lay up. The healthy lead made by the Giants in the opening quarter only continued to grow and created their biggest lead of the game at 23 after a Jamell Anderson three ball from the corner.

From a 23 point lead, Surrey clawed it back to a singular digit lead through constantly hounding the inside and grabbing offensive rebounds. Momentum began to swing once again in favour of the Giants, from only a 5 point lead to extend it to double digits in a matter of 30 seconds with Geno Artison and Jamell Anderson both stringing threes to bring about a healthier looking Giants lead.

After a slower second and third quarters, the Giants spurred themselves on in an offensive onslaught led by Jamell Anderson, Dan Clark and Geno Artison and also aided by Josh Steel and Jack Hudson to round out a convincing win 85-67. Geno Artison led Giants scorers tonight finishing with 17 points and 5 rebounds, closely followed by Jamell Anderson on 14 points and 9 rebounds. A very near double double. Anderson also tallied a trio of steals too. Dan Clark also finished with a near double double as he finished with 11 points and 8 rebounds.

Head Coach Lloyd Gardner said "I thought we took our foot off the gas, we had an opportunity to really blow the game open, we know Surrey are a team that don’t die, they always come back and they showed that. Again they came within 4 in the 4th quarter, it was disappointing from us that we made it a close game towards the end but good a team response at the same time when we needed to we were able to turn it on.''