Thursday 10 April 2014 London Lions 73-98 Worcester Wolves

Worcester Wolves consolidated their hold on second place in the British Basketball League after a comprehensive 98-73 win at London Lions on Thursday. In their last league encounter at London’s Copper Box Arena the Wolves had to pull back a late deficit to finally triumph after overtime. On this occasion the visitors left no room for error, moving into the lead shortly after the first quarter, and stubbornly barring their host’s attempts to mount a comeback.

On the first possession of the evening Lions’ Michael Martin shot attempt went awry. Wolves’ Kalil Irving snatched the rebound and passed the ball to Will Creekmore who sank a confident triple. Creekmore was next to score for Worcester, and saw team mate Alex Owumi take the next five points for an early 10-7 advantage.

A score from Joe Ikhinmwin levelled matters at 18-18 as the first quarter concluded, but a long-distance success from point guard Zaire Taylor soon put Wolves back in charge as the second period opened.

After three minutes had elapsed the advantage had increased to 27-20, before Martin set off on a purple patch of scoring. The 40-year-old former Great Britain forward nailed a remarkable half-dozen baskets before the end of the first half, and it was only a trio of three-pointers from Jamal Williams and Owumi that allowed Wolves to hold London at bay at 44-35.

It was Creekmore who was again first to move the scoreboard after the interval, before, inevitably, Martin replied. Scoring support finally arrived for London in the shape of American forward Jason Davis, whose six points aided his side to edge closer at 50-46 by midway through the third period. However, two fouls committed by Martin in little over a minute forced his withdrawal to the Lions bench, allowing the visitors to once more pull clear, leading 69-55 entering the final quarter.

Matters only worsened for the hosts in the next couple of minutes after a double of scores from outside the arc from Kai Williams helped build a healthy 77-57 cushion. When Williams again connected two minutes later, the last flickerings of London resistance were extinguished. With Taylor and Creekmore in particular continuing to rack up points, the victorious trip to the Capital was finalised.

Paul James was happy with what took place, commenting: “It was a very good team performance, with five of our players all hitting double-figure scoring for us to take the win.”

Looking ahead to Friday’s match at the University of Worcester Arena against Leicester Riders, (tip off 7.30pm), James added: “As long as we carry on where we left off today, with tough defence and good movement of the ball on offence, then we will do well.”

Taylor led the Worcester scoring with 22 points, closely followed by Creekmore and Owumi with 21 and 20 points respectively. The Williams brothers combined for 20 points between them. Martin top-scored for London with 19 points though, tellingly, all but two of that total came in the first half of the evening.