A night to forget for Lavery and Cheshire
It was a night to forget for Cheshire Jets as they were punished 65-94 at home to Worcester Wolves in the BBL Championship.
In what was described afterwards by coach John Lavery as “the worst performance I’ve ever seen by a Jets team”.
The first quarter looked as though it could have been a tight affair, the two sides trading baskets early on, at 9-6 this was to be Cheshire’s biggest lead of the game, however late on a rally by the Wolves gave them a five point lead, 21-26, going into the second period.
Baskets from Bill Cole and Adam Brown brought the game to within a point; however Worcester then went on the rampage going on a 15-0 run. Within that time, Matt Schneck received his third foul, for use of an elbow, forcing him to sit out the rest of the quarter to see his team continue to lose sight of their opponents.
It was not what the Jets could have possibly imagined going into half-time. Scoring only 11 points in the quarter, and being behind by 14 points, to a side looking for an eighth consecutive league win. But it did, as David Watts sunk a buzzer-beating three pointer pushing the score out further, 32-49.
The third quarter saw it pick up exactly where it was left. Sherrad Prezzie-Blue posted another three, followed by two points from Richie Gordon. It was the only quarter of the game in which Cheshire could keep the scoring level, helped in part thanks to fouls commited by Worcester sending Brown to the line for free throws. However, there was just no real passion from the Jets, and when late points in the quarter from Gordon and Prezzie-Blue went down, the whole Wolves side began chest-bumping one another; a sense of togetherness and in it for each other as they were on for taking Cheshire 3-0 for the season.
Again in the final ten minutes, it was just pure dominance from Worcester, and the wilting Jets side looked as if they wanted to be off court as quick as they could. The visitors went on another double figure run and at 57-86 midway through the last quarter, many wished it to end there.
Fringe players for both sides came on with less than two minutes to go, for the Jets, Ryan Gallagher and Phil Brandreth, with Eoghann Dover and Daniel Belgrave making appearances for Worcester. The game drew to a close at 65-94.
A double-double from Richie Gordon of 17 points and 19 rebounds was the stand out stat for Worcester, whilst Colin O’Reilly for Cheshire also took one home of 16 points and 10 rebounds. Gordon, it must be added made 3 blocked shots, taking him 2 away from equalling the all-time record by a Wolves player, so watch out for that in the next few games. Cole did well despite an ankle injury suffered last week, and picked up 12 points, Schneck’s points tally could have been more had the looming foul trouble early on not been hanging over him, but still made 11 rebounds. Wolves, however, had six players score in double figures, and made 49% of their field goal attempts.
It was a bitter pill to swallow for coach Lavery, but not without a damning review of his side’s efforts, and more significantly and apology to supporters: “We just weren’t at the races at all. People just weren’t focused on what they wanted to do, what we’re capable of doing. It was a really bad performance. I just apologise to whoever paid to come and see that, that was the worst performance I’ve ever seen by a Jets team.
After a game like that they need to look at themselves. I don’t think we came to play at all, I think first, second, third or fourth quarter, no-one had a good game. It was boys against men out there, they could do what they wanted to do, get what they wanted, we couldn’t stop them.
No-one could play D, the offence was terrible, you can’t play any worse than we did tonight. That was the worst performance I’ve seen all year.
After a defeat in such manner, Lavery was asked what his side will have to show ahead of a trip to Sheffield and a visit from Guildford: “We’ll look at the tape but we can’t play any worse than we did tonight. Anybody would have come here and beat us tonight if we had put in a performance like that so we’ve just got to knuckle down and practice and try to rectify all the mistakes we made tonight and obviously see what happens.
Was concentration the key chink in his team’s armour? Not just that according to Lavery: “There were a lot of key points, we didn’t play D, we didn’t execute at all, we didn’t play any help side D, they could get basically anything inside and outside and as an overall team we just weren’t at the races tonight at all, we were absolutely awful.”
Without doubt it will have knocked the confidence of his team, but with seven games left to play in the regular season, there is still hope, but giant steps are needed to come back from this showing.
Cheshire Jets: 21, 32, 51, 65
Worcester Wolves: 26, 49, 68, 94
Jets: Brown (22), O’Reilly (16), Cole (12)
Wolves: Prezzie-Blue (20), Gordon (17), Kazlauskas (13)
