( l - r ) Tivoli's Whilby, Majesty's McLeish

The clamouring of pot covers and ringing of bells will add to what is expected to be a terrific atmosphere inside the National Indoor Sports Centre, when Southern Conference champions Tivoli Gardens Wizards meet Majesty Gardens Legends in game one of the (NBL)/Flow All-Island National Basketball League best-of-three final series today, starting at 7 p.m.

The match is expected to attract a very large turn-out from the teams which are based in separate inner-city communities.

However, the Wizards are still oozing with confidence after they defeated Majesty 2-1 in the three-match Southern Conference finals.

Battle for supremacy

The Wizards secured their spot with an easy 2-0 series win over the Manchester Pythons in the semi-finals.

Today's final is expected to be an exciting encounter as both teams are evenly matched in all departments.

Majesty's Kemar McLeish and the Wizards' Omar Barnes will face off at shooting; at point guard the Wizards' Anthony Farquharson and Baldon Todd of Majesty will battle for supremacy; and at center Majesty's Maurice Blackwood will tackle Andrew Whilby.

Edward 'Ted' Marshall, coach of the Wizards, who last won the title in 2002, said he was very optimistic his team could capture the double.

"We are very confident because it has been a long time since we have won this competition and my players are hungry for the title," said Marshall.

"It is going be a good game because Majesty are going to come out very hard at us, but we are going to have to play very hard to beat them," he said.

Strong team

Marshall added that his team also wanted to prove to everyone that their Southern Conference title win over Majesty was no fluke, by beating them again in this championship series.

"I have a lot of depth in my team that can match up with Majesty's star players, man for man, and once we play tight defence, then we should win the game," Marshall reasoned.

Majesty secured their spot in the finals with a 2-0 series win over defending champions Urban Knights in the semi-finals.

However, for the Kingston 11-based team, preparations going into the finals have been severely hampered by a spate of violence in their community, which has claimed the life of one of their committee members.

Despite the setback, Marland Nattie, coach of Legends, said his players are ready and raring to go.

"We know it will never be easy after what happened and so we have been taking everything in stride because it is there and so we just have to work around it," said Nattie, who is a former president of the Jamaica Basketball Association.

"If we play consistently and execute what we practise in training, then we should have a different outcome in this series," Nattie said.

"We need some strong defence and we can't allow their scorers to have their way against us again because we need to shut them down."

Nattie added: "I need my players to be consistent and play good defence for four quarters because offensively I know that we are capable of outscoring them."