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Joel Osborne writes

Posted Monday, April 9th 2018 @BristolSportJO

Everyone’s raised their game - Burns

Monday, April 9th 2018

Nick Burns has shared his delight after seeing Bristol Flyers step up once again in the absence of Coach Kapoulas.

The interim boss kept his unbeaten run alive after Bristol Flyers picked up a 78-66 win against Manchester Giants - their third straight victory since the departure of Coach K to the Commonwealth Games.

Flyers raced out the blocks with a 9-0 run in the opening quarter, in a game they led from start to finish in front of a sold out crowd at the SGS WISE Arena.

"It’s another win and it’s an important one which keeps us in the play-off picture,” Burns told Bristol Flyers TV.

"We scouted Manchester very carefully, they're a very dangerous team and their league position doesn’t reflect that.

"They’ve got a good squad together and they can score very quickly.”

Rohndell Goodwin finished with a game-high 26 points, whilst Adam Weary had 19 points, five rebounds and four assists to go along with two steals.

"Everybody’s raised their game,” added Burns.

"The players have bought into this idea that we're men down, Andreas is away and everybody's got to work that little bit harder.

"There were some good defensive performances too, I thought Brandon (Boggs) was excellent early on.

"He never quite found his scoring rhythm, but he did a great defensive job on David Kadiri early on which is important because he’s a key player for them.

"It’s the defensive contributions that are just as important and the offensive ones - they don’t show up on the stat sheet."

The result boosts Flyers to 15-12 on the season, with a chance to confirm their place in the BBL Play-Offs if they can pick up a win against Cheshire Phoenix on Friday, April 13th.

"It’s going to be another close game - I don’t think Cheshire know how to have games that aren’t close,” Burns admitted.

“We’ve played them before and I’m sure they’re going to be determined to get a win - they won’t want to lose all three against us.”

Friday’s game against Cheshire Phoenix will be available to watch for FREE worldwide on the BBC Sport website (7.30pm BST).