Friday 08 April 2016 London Lions 101-89 Worcester Wolves

Worcester Wolves had no answer to a bombardment of three-point shots on Friday as they dropped to an 89-101 defeat at London Lions.

London sunk a highly-impressive 17 long-range bombs from 31 attempts while, for their own part, Wolves could make a mere five of their 21 attempts, a success-rate less than half that of their hosts. On an individual basis, former-Worcester man Kai Williams reveled in nailing a quintet of triples amongst his team-leading 20 points.

Up until the final ten minutes of the evening, Wolves stayed firmly in contention, before eventually capitulating to Lions’ outside explosion.

As the match began there was little sign of what was to come. By six minutes into the contest Wolves were in front at 17-13 once Jordan Aaron had grabbed his second basket and once Williams was off-target for the third time.

As the opening quarter wound down London’s Joe Ikhinmwin suddenly sprang to life with a trio of three-pointers, helping his side to a 29-27 lead.
It would take until three minutes into the second period before Williams debuted on the scoresheet. At midway through the period the teams were tied up at 38-38. Persistence close to the hoop from Wolves’ centre Perris Blackwell helped maintain an even 52-52 half-time scoreboard.

After the interval both sides’ offenses migrated outwards. Worcester’s guard combo of Jay Couisnard and Aaron hit from afar, while Williams and Ikhinmwin did likewise for London.

A Javier Mugica bucket edged Wolves 76-75 at the start of the final quarter, but this was to be their last advantage. Williams and recent signing Olu Babalola took it in turn to sink threes with ease, while delighting in seeing their visitors repeatedly fall short in their own attempts.

Blackwell led the scoring with 23 points, 16 of that total coming before half-time. Couisnard was next-highest scorer with 15 points.

Despite the loss, Coach Paul James was still upbeat about his team’s performance, saying: “We came up against a London side that simply shot the lights out. We challenged their shots, we had hands in their faces. I can’t fault the efforts of my players.”

Wolves will now need to quickly bounce back for a trip on Saturday to Bristol Flyers. “I’m still optimistic – we didn’t play badly today. One or two of London’s players got hot from the outside, and suddenly they were all at it. Any side would have found tonight difficult,” added James.