The Lions were defeated in heart breaking fashion at the final buzzer by the Leicester Riders. The last second shot from Leicester’s Jarius Holder silenced the crowd at the Copperbox, leaving fans and players stunned.
Tough Loss
This shock defeat is only the Lions second of the season. London remain atop the British Basketball League with a 9-2 record. Some may put the loss down to fatigue as the team had played a hard-fought game only two days prior. However, Lions’ Forward Paul Guede was making no excuses after the game.
“We had multiple chances to close the game while we were holding them scoreless and we just didn’t do that…it’s on us, we have to go back and watch the tape and see what we can improve on”
Squad Rotation
Guede was one of London’s stand out performers scoring eight points off the bench in the first half. Once again, the starting lineup took a back seat and relied on their subs to keep them in the game at times. With strong performances from the likes of Guede and Lockhart in recent games, Coach Macaulay may soon have to consider inserting one of them into the starting line-up.
One loss is no cause for panic, especially for an experienced ball club like the Lions. However, the fashion in which they lost is clear and has plagued the team through the 2018/19 season: foul trouble.
Defensive Adjustment?
The Lions play a style of defense that pressurizes opposing ball handlers. They play with aggression, sometimes too much aggression. It appeared London lost their heads on Sunday night as they committed numerous fouls in the fourth quarter, sending the Riders to the free throw line time and time again.
Once the Lions were over their fifth foul in the quarter it put them in the ‘bonus’ which means that every foul they committed after this would result in free throws for the Riders. This cost the squad late as they were twice penalized for loose ball fouls in the final minutes of the game. To lose the game on fouls that were committed over 90 feet from the basket has to be deflating for any team.
Preparing For Eagles
The Lions will have to pick themselves up quickly as they face bitter rivals Newcastle away in their next contest. Forward Paul Guede put an emphasis on studying the game footage to clean up the teams play, and prepare them for their next match-up.
“We had some pretty good action throughout the game, obviously we came up short. We had times where we had lapses (defensively) and they took advantage of that. But we’ll go back and we’ll review tape and see what we can take away from the game”
Hopefully the extra film study will help the London to re-shape their game plan in time for the first leg of their massive BBL cup semifinal match-up with the Eagles away in Newcastle on December 7th.
