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Interactive Betting Zone Book Store Auctions News by Email Frequently Asked Questions Gayle's 40 is just Magic
NBL Trophy: Manchester 98 Derbyshire 72Spurred by 40 points from Steven Gayle, Manchester Magic ran up a win over Derbyshire Arrows on Saturday.
Smarting from last week’s defeat by the Arrows, the Magic were determined to do better in this return encounter in the National Trophy competition, but from the tip, the Arrows moved into a confident lead, at one time eight points in the first quarter, moving the ball sweetly, defending strongly and hitting their three-pointers.
Sensing a rout, Magic coach Jeff Jones took a gamble by bringing on a team of mainly quick, small guards who immediately started to turn the game round to end the quarter 20-25 down.
The same five started the second quarter with Antony Haase doing duty under both baskets. Two minutes later, they had a one point lead, but the Arrows staged a spirited comeback and moved into a 40-31 lead. Steven Gayle was moving into his scoring stride and Haase was demonstrating his favourite turnaround jump shot , when a sweet three pointer from Samit Nuriyev started a surge of Magic scoring, coupled with some fierce defence, which led to the Magic closing the half 52-43 ahead. John Shaw had typified the Magic determination, when he missed the second of two free throw, took the rebound and made himself two points, with seconds to go.
In the second half, the Magic moved steadily ahead, as the Arrows seemed to run out of ideas, but, with the score at 70-55, Arrows player-coach Garnet Gayle injured his knee, in what at first looked like an innocuous collision with Sean McKie, and took no further part in the game.
Without his presence on court, the Arrows seemed to lose momentum in the last quarter and the Magic youngsters came into their own, with Wayne Mulgrave contributing some excellent shooting. When he had scored his fortieth point of the evening, to maintain his average over the first six competitve games with the club, Steven Gayle retired to the bench to watch his young teammates play out time for what had become an easy win. Jeff Jones was delighted by the spirit and commitment shown by all his young squad and the crowd went home happy to have seen such an entertaining game in such pleasant surroundings.
London United 72 Sutton Pumas 95
London United went into its fourth game of the season at home to Conference League outfit Sutton on Saturday on the back of a 3 game winning streak, having beaten their opponents the previous week by 23 points in Sutton.
The return game was to be a very different affair as coaches Majewski and Schiller expected with Sutton's pride hurt and the Pumas ran out comfortable winners at Brunel.
The pre match talk focused on how Sutton would have prepared for the United’s defensive pressure and how they would be like wounded animals after the heavy defeat last week.
That was exactly what happened in the first quarter of the game as United applied its zone press, Sutton broke it down immediately by using their 7 foot centre Cook to break the system in the middle of the court.
That effectively freed up Knetchel from Sutton to nail two early three pointers giving the Sutton team an early lead.As the quarter neared the final four minutes Sutton were leading by 10 points, however suddenly the pressure from United paid off and they were able to score 11 points without reply through Walid Mumuni’s hard work.
The quarter finished 24-25 in favour of Sutton.The second quarter saw a turn around in Suttons favour as they outscored United by 11-18 giving them a half time lead of 35-43.
United new that they were in a completely different game than last weekend and for some reason their energy levels for such a young team were not high. The two coaches failed to understand how the work rate of the normally high octane defence was so low.
In the second half it meant that Sutton could score more easily and they defended very well against the outside shooting threat of Peter Deppisch from United.Sutton continued to use their size advantage by muscling United out of the game and saw through a revenge victory of 23 points, exactly the same as the beating they took from United the previous week.
Sutton’s American guard Gerry Glover had a strong game and penetrated the United defence as well as shooting well from outside.United didn’t have too many plus points to take from the game as in the opinion of both coaches “this was a very unusual performance”. They both thought that so many things were wrong with the performance it was difficult to pinpoint the exact problem.
“It may have been an off day, we’ll have to wait and see how we react to Worthing Thunder next week” said Majewski.
“Not taking anything away from Sutton, but we just didn’t play, but I am sure they said the same thing about their own performance last week” explained assistant coach Dave Schiller.
Solent 64 Westminster 86
Both teams displayed symptoms of nervousness as they attempted to take the initial advantage in this National Trophy Pool C match at Fleming Park. Westminster dominated the boards and were able to
score with several second phase attempts after securing offensive rebounds to secure an easy win.At first, winless Solent seemed off the pace but gradually they got into their stride and by the sixth minute had opened a 14 - 6 lead. Westminster could not find their shooting range but were helped by Solent turning the ball over on several occasions when the
home team could have consolidated their early lead. Two late baskets in the quarter by Westminster meant that they were able to keep in touch to trail by just three points after the first session (20 - 17).Coach Mark Scott could only watch in dismay at the start of the second quarter when Solent immediately conceded the lead by the second minute having failed to score and being guilty of several unforced errors whilst Westminster rattled in six points. Solent were not to lead again in the game. Having reached team fouls in the seventh minute and therefore gifting the visitors six more visits to the free throw line, it took a dogged, determined performance by theSolent team to pull the deficit back to just four points (37 - 41) by
half time having trailed at one stage by eleven points.It was Solent's turn to benefit from the team foul situation in the third quarter when Westminster saw Solent go to the line eight times to score six of their third quarter points. However, Solent could only manage four field goals in a low scoring quarter of only 31 points. Although coming to within one point in the second minute (41 - 42) Solent could not stop Westminster scoring with consecutive three point shots to give them a cushion. Neither side impressed in
this quarter but at the end only five points separated the teams (52 - 57) which could have been closer had the referee not disallowed Dave Butterworth's last second effort.Westminster's lead was reduced to just three points with Butterworth's opening basket of the final quarter. However, immediately the visitors struck back when they landed a three pointer and were given another point as Trevor Donaldson fouled the shooter.
Solent could only manage 12 points in the last quarter as Westminster grew in confidence and scored almost at will. Solent had Jon Neale, David Butterworth and Adam Willis fouled out in the last four minutes, but by then they were a well beaten team.Poor shooting, rebounding and too many turnovers leaves Mark Scott with a huge task prior to next week-end's home National Cup match against fancied
Brighton Bears of the Basketball League.
Mansfield 67 Teesside 99
TVL Mohawks completed National Trophy doubles over both Mansfield and Ware at the weekend, stretching their winning sequence to seven games from seven outings and with it earning a place in the quarter finals of the competition with three games still to play.
Unlike the five previous outings, Tony Hanson’s side never looked like surrendering their hard-earned early leads and disposed of both opponents in clinical fashion – Mansfield by 32 points and Ware by 31.
Hanson even had enough in hand to bring in another two new faces for their senior debuts, taking the number of players used so far to 14.
Whether the results give any indication of the side’s prospects going into Saturday’s NTL Cup tie against top British Basketball League (BBL) side Leicester Riders at Eston Sports Academy is open to question.
Hanson clearly did not put all his cards on the table with Riders’ coach Billy Mims taking a keen interest from the bleachers at Mansfield, while unlucky Ware Rebels travelled to Teesside with only three of their preferred squad after suffering a late spate of injuries.
The Hertfordshire outfit were fortunate to find their hosts engaging in 40 minutes of experimentation. Realistically they could have been trekking back south with a deficit of 50 plus points and can count themselves lucky to have scored over half a century themselves.
A number of conference league teams have fallen victim to giant killing acts by lower league opposition, a trap which Mohawks themselves have so far avoided.
Skipper Jason Swaine said: “We really can’t complain at the moment. We are on a run and have yet to slip up, although we nearly did against Manchester recently.
“But we’ve got to play the teams that are there and no disrespect to Ware, who weren’t that strong, we just got on with it and took it very professionally.”
Mansfield went into Saturday’s fixture feeling confident of a close game after being the first side to restrict Mohawks to less than 90 points in over a year when the sides met just a week earlier at Eston.
But there was never any doubt as to who would take the two points, with Mohawks quickly stamping their authority on the game and racing into a 16-6 lead by the fifth minute.
The second five minutes of the opening quarter were almost as productive, Hanson’s side sinking another 14 to Mansfield’s seven to take a 17 point lead into the first break.
Quarter two proved to be a battle of the big guns. And it was Mohawks’ Ralph Bucci who just edged ahead of home hotshot Hilroy Thomas with a personal tally of 14 against twelve for the Express player as the lead increased to 31 with less than four minutes on the first half clock.
Amongst Bucci’s contribution was a three pointer that came after a quite stunning passage of play that involved 7 or 8 lightening quick passes round the court before feeding out to the New Yorker outside the arc while the Mansfield defence was left chasing shadows.
Only in the final 45 seconds of the half did the foot come off the gas, allowing Mansfield a rare luxury of a 9-2 run to finish off the first twenty minutes. But the game was effectively already over at 62-37 in Mohawks’ favour.
The atmosphere would have been very relaxed in the dressing room during the interval after arguably the most complete first half performance so far this season by Hanson’s side. Defensive steals and interceptions, of which there were several, were quickly converted into points, while only one free throw failed to hit the target.
A nervous start to the second half saw both sides miss the opening scoring opportunities. But when the points did come it was home players Dylan Bogg and Drew Barrett who got in with the first four points before Steve Pilkington bagged his own rebound.
The first of two consecutive low-scoring quarters was notable only for a basket from James Nicholson off a Swaine assist after another defensive interception by EJ Harrison, and two points on the last play from Mark Greenwood, the Middlesbrough College under 20s player who was given his first senior outing.
Teesside 108 Ware 77
Coach Hanson opted to protect some of his players for the next day’s home fixture and sent out a line up of Swaine, Nicholson, Steve Butler, Greenwood and Neil Campbell for the final quarter.
Butler made the most of the opportunity, sinking a couple of threes to ensure that he joined top-scorer Bucci (26pts), Harrison (21) and Steve Pilkington (16) in scoring double figures. Jon Stonebridge found himself fouled out with a minute to go.
There was much sympathy for Ware’s predicament. Many believed that the Herts club could improve on their recent home performance when they held Mohawks to just an 8 point win despite courting an understrength line-up. But the published team list was all but wiped out through injury, leaving a scratch side to try to turn the formbook on its head.
Mohawks’, with staffing problems of their own, called up yet another new player, this time David Urwin, who took to the court alongside Mark Greenwood after both had played the bulk of Middlesbrough College’s win over East Houghall and Durham College less than half an hour earlier on the same court.
Mohawks took full advantage of the visitors’ plight right from the tip off, with Steve Butler, who was given a rare place in the staring five, enjoying his spell in the limelight and helping himself to 9 points for the first quarter after skipper Jason Swaine was amongst several people, including one of the referees, who were caught out by the earlier tip off.
Runs of 13-0 and 15-0 helped the home side carve out an incredible 39-10 lead going into the second session, which produced another battering that gave Mohawks a 40 point lead at the interval.
In one of the most bizarre twists Hanson chose to switch five players at a time and not go for the massacre that could undoubtedly have ensued. Swaine, who went on to top-score despite missing the start, ended his side’s scoring with a three in the seventh minute. Thereafter the final 11 points of the game were scored by Rebels’ Dave Churches and Dan Scott, while debutant David Urwin got his marching orders in the final minute after amassing five fouls.
It will be all fingers crossed that everyone comes through Thursday’s trip to Hull unscathed as the side looks ahead to the biggest challenge of the season so far, the visit of professional Leicester Riders on Saturday.
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