HEAD coach Paul James reckons Worcester Wolves are playing well enough to make a successful defence of their British Basketball League play-off crown.

Wolves, who beat Newcastle Eagles at Wembley Arena in 2014, have two games of the regular campaign to go — against Leicester Riders at the University Arena tonight (7.30pm) and at Durham Wildcats on Sunday (4pm).

While they lost 66-63 at Leicester on Tuesday to see their hopes of finishing runners-up to champions Newcastle evaporate, one more win would secure third spot.

With the play-offs starting next weekend, James insists Worcester are hitting their stride at the right time.

“We really believe that we’ve got a real shot at retaining the play-off championship, especially the way we’re playing now,” he said.

“As a team we believe we can do it and the focus is there so we’re really excited.

“We want to finish off on a positive note in the last two games and make sure we get as many wins as we can before moving into the play-offs.

“In our last few games we have been highly competitive in beating Newcastle and Glasgow at home. We are getting to where we want to be just at the right time and we’re playing some really solid basketball.”

Wolves jostled for the lead against Riders throughout Tuesday’s match before eventually ending up on the wrong end of the scoreline.

But victory tonight would give them the coveted head-to-head record over Rob Paternostro’s side following an 86-82 away triumph in December.

James is hoping his team can bounce back in front of their own fans and treat the match as if it was the second leg of a play-off encounter.

The Wolves chief said: “Our crowds have been fantastic of late so that’s going to give us a bit of a boost. We felt we let one get away against Leicester on Tuesday so we’re looking forward to bringing them back here and hopefully we can play just as well defensively but make a few more shots than we did.

“We’re at home and used to our basket so hopefully our scoring will be a bit more fluent than it was. It would be nice to go out and try to beat them by four or more.”

Wolves could also see centre Robert Thurman involved more extensively after he returned from injury in the midweek Riders clash.

“Robert, who was our concern, is now back in training,” James said. “He will play a bit tonight and we’ll just get him ready to be at full capacity come the play-offs.”