Worcester Wolves 75-91 London City Royals BBL 28/12/18

Worcester Wolves ended their 2018 fixtures with a home defeat against British Basketball League newcomers London City Royals on Friday.

Although Worcester stayed within touch of their visitors at 70-75 with three minutes remaining, a closing London surge saw them take a 91-75 win.

Wolves began slowly before five points from Darell Combs and a dish to Filip Kramer tied the teams up at 9-9.

A handful of early points for former NBA Summer League participant Matthew Bryan-Amaning helped his side to a 25-18 first-quarter lead. When he produced a behind-the-back assist for his frontcourt partner Ashley Hamilton to convert the advantage widened to 32-20 after three minutes of the second period.

Robert Crawford and Miki Servera got onto the scoreboard to reduce the deficit and recent big man signing Lester Prosper threw down a powerful dunk to level matters at 34-34.

Back behind at 36-42 entering the second half, Worcester’s problems increased when inspirational forward Deshawn Freeman fell heavily to the floor.

Once Freeman had been helped off the court Royals took charge, maximising their superiority at 56-39 by midway through the third quarter.

With six minutes left in the evening London still held sway at 74-60. Combs and Servera now took turns in driving to the basket for ten unanswered points and a sniff of success.

But a London time-out steadied their ship, profiting from careless ball-handling and slotting in second-chance points after missed free throws to grab the victory.

Combs led the home scoring with 14 points, followed by Servera and Crawford with 12 and 10 points respectively.

Director of Basketball Ty Shaw highlighted a disparity in the number of fouls called as a contributing factor to the loss, saying:
“We got 15 offensive rebounds but only came out of that with 16 free throws. In the second half they shot 27 free throws and we didn’t shoot a single one – I’ve never seen that in a basketball game.”

Photo by Keith Hunt