Lions v Heat Sunday 6 Nov’ 2011

Prestige Homes MK Lions and Guildford Heat will both be looking to collect a BBL Championship victory when they meet at the MK Basketball Centre on Sunday evening.

Both sides go into the weekend aiming for their first Championship win of the campaign, but despite having suffered eight straight losses, Lions’ coach Mike New isn’t taking them lightly: “I’m surprised they’ve started the season so poorly, they’re a decent team and we expect a tough game,”

Lions go into the game on the back of a weekend which saw their BBL Cup dreams end with a heavy loss at Jelson Homes DMU Leicester Riders before a strong second half at London Leopards saw them progress to the BBL Trophy semi-final.

Coach New admitted that Riders deserved the win: “Leicester gave us a dose of our own medicine and bombarded us with three-pointers early in the game. Every time we took a step forward, they dropped a three on us and we had too bigger a deficit at half-time. We played a little better in the second half, but you’ve got to credit Leicester for how they played.

“We weren’t much better against Leopards, and I’m just happy to get the win. I’ve tried to tell the guys, it’s not always going to be pretty, sometime you have to win ugly – it was an important game for us as the win got us to a semi-final.

“I wasn’t worried at half-time, I just wanted to snap my players out of the funk they’ve been in for the last couple of games. They were subdued and emotionally drained from losing in the Cup. I needed to re-focus them into getting that semi-final place in the Trophy.”

Heat forward Julius Joseph isn’t expect an easy game in MK: “They are probably in the bottom half of the table on paper, but who knows what will happen when the dust settles? They’ve got a mix of youth and experience, but it’ll be another tough game as we look for our first win. It’s always difficult to get the first one when you’ve started badly.”

Guildford come into the game on the back of a BBL Cup loss against Worcester Wolves and a BBL Championship defeat against Cheshire Jets, and coach Raftopoulos admitted his frustration at the results: “We played 36 minutes of decent basketball against the Wolves and fell short of victory through a bad four minutes of play to start the fourth quarter. Julius, Mike [Martin] and Dean [Williams] had played huge for us in the third to tie the game at 55-55. We then tried to give them a rest starting the fourth quarter and it backfired. Mike set the tone for us in the first and Julius kept us in the game the rest of way with his three point shooting going 7/8 from down town.

“Mike did a good job to get Richie Gordon in foul trouble but the Lithuanian duo provided scoring from inside and out while he Richie sat on the bench.

“Against Jets, the third quarter meltdown cost us the as we had to fight back from 10 points down in the fourth and had no legs to close it out in the fourth in what was our third game in five days. Tayo [Ogedegebe] played big for us using his athletic ability attacking the basket and making his free throws to finish with 27 points. Mike, Julius and Martelle [McLemore] contributed to our scoring but it was our struggles against the zone that let us down.

“Chester’s point guard Adam Brown made all the big shots right decisions down the stretch and O’Reilly, Cole and Schneck all got into double figures so coach Lavery had to be happy with his team’s performance.”

The Heat coach is well prepared from Sunday’s trip to Milton Keynes: “Coach New has had a mixture of results starts to the season but they’re a talented group that will eventually get it right. Mike knows this league better than most so he will make the right decisions to get them rolling.

“Demarius Bolds is an out and out scorer so we know we have to do a team defensive job on him. Gill shoots the three well and Northern and Crawford bring athleticism and size at the forward positions.”