Lions' guard Justin Robinson is looking for his side to play to their full potential as they look to overturn a 92-80 first leg deficit when they meet Plymouth Raiders in the BBL Championship play-off semi-final, on Thursday.
"It was an uncharacteristic performance from us, and the opposite of how we've been playing recently" admitted Robinson who had 12 points and five assists in Tuesday's defeat.
"We didn't stick to our game-plan, we knew what we had to do but we strayed away from that and allowed the game to get away from us a bit down the stretch.
"It was closer than 12 points for most of the game, and we were close late in the third [period] and early in the fourth but they made some good inside plays and we had some defensive lapses that cost us."
Lions gave up 32 points in the final quarter, and Robinson knows his side have to play better defensively if they are to become only the third side in BBL history to come back from a 12 plus point deficit to win a two-leg tie: "Giving up 17 offensive rebounds is clearly something we have to work on and they had too many run-outs. We fouled them unnecessarily at times which gave them 30 free-throws. It all comes down to being more disciplined defensively as a team. We need to be on the same page defensively.
"We gave Ricky McGill a bit too much room, allowing him to penetrate with straight line drives - and again that comes down to team defence. Ashley [Hamilton] also had a good game, but we need to be more physical and throw the first punch. It wasn't our kind of basketball and maybe we let them bully us a bit. We need to be a bit quicker to the loose ball."
Robinson still believes that Lions can overcome the deficit and qualify for Sunday's final: "We've gone over things in practice, and hopefully we'll come out with all guns blazing. We're still confident that it can be done. If any team can do it, we can if we play the way we were before Tuesday."
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