Caledonia Gladiators ‘have to beat best team’ London Lions to maintain trophy defence

Head coach Gareth Murray says Caledonia Gladiators will “have to beat the best team” if they are to keep their BBL Trophy defence on track.

Gladiators take on league leaders London Lions in Saturday’s semi-final (15:30 GMT) at Arena Birmingham, with the final at the same venue the following day.

Cheshire Phoenix meet Leicester Riders in the other semi-final.

“We want to play against the best players,” Murray told BBC Scotland.

“It’s five v five. If you hit your shots on the day and you play defence and you stick to the gameplan, hopefully we can come out with a win and get ourselves to the final.”

Murray accepts that Gladiators endured a sluggish start to this season’s competition after beating Cheshire in last year’s home final.

“Yeah for sure,” he said. “We lost our first two games. Not a great start to defending our trophy. We managed to scrape through.”

Murray’s side are second in the British Basketball League and beat London in December.

“London would be the favourites to win the whole competition,” Murray added. “If you want to win the trophy then you have to beat the best team. For us, it’s about playing our basketball.”