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BBL Towers minus Lewis rout Jets
Lee Ridley
London Towers easily overcame Chester Jets 85-58 in their play-off quarter
final game and will now face Birmingham Bullets for a place in the Wembley
final.Danny Lewis, returning from a back injury, remained firmyl on the bench for Towers while the Jets had 19-year-old rookie Paul Singer in for the unavailable
Terrance Lewis.Chester came into this match-up on a four game winning streak and it was
they who started the better side. Greg Francis opened the scoring and,
despite some early missed shots, the Jets had the lead at 8-11 with five
minutes played. However, led by Donnie Johnson, who ended the first quarter
with 10 points and 6 rebounds, London drew level at 17-17 and then gained
control of the game in the last minute of the stanza as they ended the
period 21-17 in front.A trey from youngster Singer opened the second quarter as Chester pulled it
back to 21-20 but that was as close as the Jets would come for the rest of
the game. Towers soon found themselves ahead 30-22 and that lead was
increased to 39-29 going into the break with Johnson on 16 points and 9
rebounds.Chester were to battle in the third but it was to little avail as London
proved why they were well on course for their fourth Championship final. The
Southerners went further ahead at 52-38 and had the game by the same margin going into the final ten minutes with the score being 62-48.As they had virtually no real bench, the Jets struggled with foul trouble in
the fourth and the Towers were allowed to coast to victory without even
having to use the returning Lewis. At 77-54, both teams ran their benches in
what was to be the white flag for Robbie Peers and his Chester team as
London looked ahead to the semis.After the game, coach Ron Abegglen said: "I thought we played one of our
better games today. I thought Chester started off really well and we had to really work hard. I was happy with our zone attack and that's been a bit of a struggle for us for most of the year."Donnie Johnson and HL Coleman were in there and they were battling for us
and I thought both of them did a great job."Towers' Barry Bowman continued: "The key today was that we played great
defence. I think it's probably the best defence we've played in a while. We
pushed the ball out and got to make the shots and we hit some big ones."Towers' England international Steve Bucknall and Jets' James Hamilton top scored with 21 points each.
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