AFTER being brought down to earth with two defeats by BBL Championship title contenders, the Cheshire Jets are keen to revive their BBL Championship play-off bid against Plymouth Raiders on Sunday (5.30pm).

The Northgate Arena welcomes back former Jets Anthony Martin, Jeremy Bell and Jamal Williams, brother of recent Jets signing Kai Williams, but there will be no affection after tip-off as the Jets know how important victory is.

“The magic number is five wins to push ourselves into the play-offs,” said Jets centre Matt Schneck.

“Plymouth are a difficult team, they give us trouble athletically but the way we’ve been playing lately shows signs of brightness and I think if you look at the past two weekends we have been playing against the top of the table.

“We tend to be a little individualistic instead of slowing the ball down and getting good possession and that’s caught up to us.

“We’re going to bring a lot of energy being back at home against the Raiders. Paul Williams, Lehmon Colbert, Jeremy Bell, they have some tough match-ups but good match-ups for us in terms of speed and physicality.”

Schneck has been one of the team leaders in this, his second pro season with the Jets and despite battling injury for most of the campaign he makes no excuses for the team’s performances.

“We have to keep the defensive intensity up. When we get out on the break and get easy buckets everybody gets into it but we’ve had trouble doing that late in games.

“I don’t know if that’s fatigue from the season but at this stage everybody is fatigued so we just have to get over it.

“My fitness is good. My ankle is still a bit of a problem for me but as a big man I’m just focusing on rebounding each game.

“As a centre you kind of let the rest of the offence come to you, you should be setting screens for your teammates, getting the good shooters open and doing the hard work down low, that’s what I’ve always prided myself on in my career.

“My points per game are a little down but that’s the way the season’s gone this year. I’m not bothered by that, my rebounding is where it’s at.”