Sweet escape and historic win for Manchester Basketball
- marisnoviks
- 7 hours ago
- 2 min read
What a game! Manchester Basketball survived a late scare and defeated sensational Dubrava Zagreb, 94-92, to post a historic 2026 playoffs win on Tuesday, March 10, at the National Basketball Performance Centre in central England.
Players of the game
A human wave formed in the stands with 1.7 seconds left.
It was a perfect example of how far a new look Manchester team has come this season.
Less than two seconds later the crowd erupted and players celebrated their first ENBL playoffs win.
Max Jones led Manchester Basketball with 31 points on 8/16 shooting from the field and 10/11 from the charity stripe.
The University of Kansas State graduate guard shot 5/9 from the three point line.
The Furman University graduate point guard PJay Smith went even further.
He scored 23 points on 6/8 shooting from the deep and a perfect 5/5 from the free throw line.
John Michael Wright was unstoppable for Dubrava Zagreb.
A formed Oklahoma State guard had a game high 34 points on 10/16 shooting from the floor and 11/15 from the charity stripe.
Key stats
Manchester Basketball shot 53 percent from the three point line, 16/30.
Those 48 points were extra valuable as disciplined and focused Dubrava Zagreb stayed in the fight until the last second.
The visitors missed their last two field goal attempts in a thrilling final act.
Dubrava Zagreb shot 56 percent inside the arc and 85 percent from the free throw line but trailed to Manchester in threes with 37 percent made, 9/24.
Game notes
Manchester Basketball improved to 7-2, while Dubrava Zagreb dropped to 4-5.
Manchester Basketball are 4-1 on the home floor after wins over Keila Coolbet, SIGAL Prishtina, BK Opava and Dubrava Zagreb.
Dubrava Zagreb are 0-5 on the road.
Matthew Otten and his men posted a historic first ENBL playoffs win.
Manchester Basketball advance to the quarterfinals where they will face Dinamo Zagreb in the best-of-two home and away series.
2026 ENBL playoffs | local time | CET
Wednesday, March 4
(7) Dziki Warszawa 97-84 Valmiera Glass ViA (10)
Tuesday, March 10
(3) CSO Voluntari 99-74 Slovan Bratislava (14)
(8) Donar Groningen 103-86 BK Opava (9)
(5) Manchester Basketball 94-92 Dubrava Zagreb (12)
Wednesday, March 11
19:45 | 18:45 (2) Iraklis BC – TalTech/ALEXELA (15)
19:30 | 19:30 (1) SYNTAINICS MBC – BK Olomoucko (16)
19:15 | 20:15 (6) Tindastoll – Riga Zelli (11)
Thursday, March 12
19:15 | 19:15 (4) Dinamo Zagreb walkover vs SIGAL Prishtina (13)
March 17-April 2, quarterfinals
Best-of-two, home and away series
April 21-23, Final Four
Location and final dates to be confirmed
2026 ENBL playoffs and bracket
Live blog: the playoffs are coming
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