Glasgow Rocks hand hard loss to Leicester Riders
It was a bitterly disappointing Saturday night for the Jelson Homes DMU Leicester Riders as the Glasgow Rocks repeated history by walking into the JSSC and walking out with a victory, 89-79.
The loss for the Riders wasn’t attributable to a single flaw in their game plan but instead a combination of sloppy play resulting in 13 turnovers, shooting 4/24 from 3 point range and hitting only 54% of their free throws. But to claim the loss was all the Riders own doing would be to do a disservice to a solid Rocks side who refused to back down and shared the offensive load between four of their five starters: player/coach Sterling Davis (17 and 9), Mychal Green (21, 8 and 7), EJ Harrison (17 points) and Gareth Murray (18 and 7).
To add insult to injury, the Rocks were without Deaundre Cranston with a suspected twisted ankle which Coach Paternostro believed his team should have taken advantage of:
“If they’re going to play with that small of a line-up and you don’t bury them inside they’re going to hurt you and that’s what they did tonight.”
The Riders weren’t without their own injury worries as starting five member, Drew Sullivan, sat out the entire game with a back injury. Paternostro stressed the importance of the long season when explaining Sullivan’s situation “We didn’t want to take any chances because we have a long, long way to go, a lot of games left, he’s very important to us.” He is hopeful the GB star can return in time for the visit of the Sheffield Sharks next week.
In short, the Glasgow Rocks deserved the victory with their hard nosed approach and relentless work ethic and will be confident that with an injury free team (or as close as they can get it), they will be a match for anyone in the play-offs. The Leicester Riders meanwhile, appeared to have simply had an off day. It can’t be ignored that the Riders have gotten off to their best start in a league campaign in history and are still on course for a top three finish, despite their recent rocky patch (no pun intended).
The Rocks now sit at 10-9 in the league and are looking for consistency heading into the final months of the season:
“We win big games on the road, like today and then we lose games at home that we know we should win” admitted Rocks point guard, Mychal Green. “We’ve had two or three games where we’ve been up 15, 17 points and we’ve let the team come back and win so it’s just all about being consistent and getting ready for the play-offs.”
Third place and above is still the aim for Paternostro’s side despite that loss and they will be looking to re-focus ahead of next Saturday’s clash with the Sharks if they are to maintain their current position.
