Plymouth Raiders v MK Lions preview
BBL Championship – Wednesday 16 November 2011
Plymouth Pavillions (19:15)
UCP Marjon Plymouth Raiders finally get their BBL Championship season under way on Wednesday evening when they host Prestige Homes MK Lions.
Gavin Love’s side are the last team to begin the regular season, but they go into the match-up with the Lions in fine form having reached the semi-final of both the BBL Cup and BBL Trophy.
While they weren’t in action at the weekend, their previous game saw them end One Health Sharks Sheffield’s domination of the Cup with an impressive 85-83 road victory, to leave coach Gavin Love a happy man:
“We played hard against the Sharks and played decent defence. Jeremy Bell [pictured], Lehmon Colbert and Paul Williams all had solid games for us.
“To be in both semi finals is a good start to the season.”
Love is expecting the Lions to provide a tough test for his side: “Demarius Bolds, Stefan Gill and Daniel Northern have started the season extremely well and Milton Keynes look [to have] a very strong squad.”
Lions were also without a game last weekend, and go into Wednesday’s match-up on the back of a narrow defeat at Newcastle Eagles. Head coach Mike New wasn’t too disappointed about the result: “We were a step slow and blew multiple assignments in the first half. In the second half we did a much better job of controlling the tempo and everyone to a man focused in on their assignments and carried them out. We gave ourselves a chance to win in the end and in a tough environment like Newcastle, that’s not too bad.
“Against Eagles Demarius was outstanding, Daniel is a walking double-double and Howard Crawford scored well.”
New has a good idea what to expect from the Raiders on Wednesday evening: “I have had a chance to see Raiders, but not since they’ve added [Jeremy] Bell. Gavin did an outstanding job of retaining a strong nucleus of Colbert and [Anthony] Rowe and being able to add the league MVP to your roster speaks volumes about how serious they are about trying to win in Plymouth.
“Both of their returnees (Colbert and Rowe) along with one time Raiders Martin and Janusauskas are good players who play to their strengths and are familiar with Gavin.
“Paul Williams has settled in nicely and James Jones can get hot at any given moment, not to mention the reigning MVP.”
The game is a dress rehearsal for the BBL Trophy semi-final match-ups between the sides, but New is taking one game at a time: “Playing them in the semi-finals doesn’t change the way that I coach. Every game is important to us and we want to play good basketball. We are focused on getting better every time out and that is the bottom line for us.”
