Ben Thomas insists Cheshire Phoenix will not get caught up in the emotion of the BBL Cup final.

The Nix have the chance to lift the trophy when they face Worcester Wolves in a packed Birmingham Arena on Sunday afternoon.

A string of convincing displays have led the Nix this far, with the Ellesmere Port club advancing against more fancied opposition.

Their thrilling two-legged comeback victory in the semi-final against London Lions preceded impressive wins over title challengers Newcastle Eagles and Bristol Flyers in earlier rounds.

But having led the Nix to the season’s first showpiece final, Thomas will not allow his squad’s collective focus to slip.

He said: “I think it’s very important that we don’t get too caught up in all the emotion and the build-up to a cup final like this.

“Obviously it’s a massive game for both sides, but we’ll approach it like we would any other fixture.

“Taking each game as it comes has become a bit of  cliche, but that has to be the case here.

“As soon as you start getting caught up in the hype, you can lose focus and the performance and game plan can suffer.

“We can reflect on the experience after the game when hopefully we’ve got ourselves the trophy.”

The Nix will hope that Orlan Jackman can inspire them to victory, after the high-flying British forward lifted the trophy with Newcastle last year.

Malcolm Riley will also be a potential game-winner, but all eyes will be on CJ Gettys who has been tearing up the BBL under the basket since he tipped off his rookie season.

Having already bagged consecutive player of the month awards, the star summer addition is eyeing up team success.

“Winning the cup would mean everything to the club,” Gettys told TUB Podcast.

“Who wouldn’t want to add some silverware to their resume?

“Naturally there’s a sense of anticipation within the team. We’ve brought a new level of intensity and focus to our practices this week that should allow us to perform on the biggest stage.

“Worcester has a lot of size and the team has a lot of momentum.

“We experienced that first hand in the Trophy last week. However, that won’t have any sway on the outcome of Sunday.

“Our mindset will be that of a team who compete for every possession. We’ll get after every hustle play: loose balls, rebounds and everything that we can control.

“That’s what we must do.”

A promising league campaign for Thomas’ side has been offset by three successive league defeats in recent weeks.

Conversely, Worcester have been a revelation this term and have amassed eight wins from their last nine Championship fixtures.

Dynamic in attack, the free-scoring Wolves ran riot in their last outing with a 109-75 success against Manchester Giants.

Veteran Wolves coach Paul James will utilise the talents of players such as George Beamon, Trayvon Palmer and Brandon Parrish who have all excelled for Worcester this season.

Speaking after their crushing defeat of the Giants, James said: “We’ll now put all our focus on Cheshire.

“Some people may have been looking past the Manchester game, but we eventually got things right.

“ If anything, it’s reminded us that we have to play for a full 40 minutes in every match.

“There’s going to be a massive 10,000 crowd in Birmingham and I’m expecting a huge number of those people to be supporting Worcester.

“We need to prepare as well as we possibly can this week and hopefully everyone will bring their A-game and we can bring the cup home.”