Playoff Finals 2023: NBL1, WNBL1 winners, recaps, gallery & reaction

Day two of the Senior Playoff Finals has brought down the curtain on the 2022/23 senior season, with Team Solent Kestrels and Hemel Storm both claiming wins.

League champs Solent avenged a loss in the 2021/22 showpiece to take the D1W playoff crown, led by MVP Faye Endean, as the Kestrels beat CoLA 78-64.

The women then passed the baton to the Men, with Hemel Storm becoming only the second team in the NBL's 50 year history to go undefeated across a full season and claim four trophies as they beat Worthing Thunder 69-63.

Recaps for both games are below, with a gallery of images at the foot of this article. Click the red game titles for Live Stats.

WNBL1 Playoff Final: Team Solent Kestrels 78-64 CoLA Southwark Pride

Team Solent Kestrels added playoff glory to their regular season title as they beat #3 seeds CoLA Southwark Pride 78-64.

In a rematch of last season's showpiece where CoLA prevailed 55-53, Solent claimed a first playoff title since 2014/15 but were made to work for it by a Pride programme that refused to go away.

Leading for almost the entirety, TSK were slowly reeled in by their opponents throughout the second half before CoLA levelled the game at 63-63 with 2:12 remaining.

That fired the regular season champs into life, who then went on a 9-0 run to give them the advantage they'd need to eventually end their season in style.

MVP honours went to regular season Player of the Year Faye Endean, who finished a truly impressive campaign with a near triple-double of 18 points, 11 rebounds and nine assists.

Endean was well supported by 15 points from Krisztina Velkey-Cleeve, plus 14 apiece from Yassin Belle-Mbaye and Megan Dorney, with the latter also adding 11 boards for a double-double.

Ebere Egbirika (32pts, 6reb) did all she could to lift CoLA to what would have been a fourth title in the last eight years, with Ana-Isabel Andersson (12pts, 8reb) the only other player to make it to double-digits.

NBL1 Playoff Final: Hemel Storm 69-63 Worthing Thunder

Hemel Storm became only the second team in the NBL's 50 year history to go undefeated across a full season and claim four trophies, sealing their quadruple in the Playoff Final with a 69-63 win over Worthing Thunder.

Storm have swept past so many teams this season, including Worthing in a 126-73 thumping in the final game of the regular season, but Thunder stood tall throughout the contest to provide a fitting spectacle to end the season.

Hemel were even restricted to a single-digit quarter (7pts) in the third, something that happened just once in the entire 2022/23 campaign, but the regular season champs responded to come out firing in the fourth, manufacturing a 12-2 run that created an advantage they'd never relinquish.

MVP honours were shared between Hemel's Taylor Johnson and Aaryn Rai in a first for the competition. Nothing could be done to split the Storm duo, with Johnson dropping a game-high 20 points to go with 13 boards, whilst Rai (12pts, 19reb, 9ast) narrowly missed out on a triple-double.

Worthing were led by a double-double effort from Orlan Jackman (18pts, 14reb), with Ronald Blain (10pts) the only other Thunder player to make it to double digits scoring. Andre Arissol (9pts, 8reb) and David Moya (8pts, 5ast) also played well in the losing cause.