London Lions will look to continue their push up the BBL Championship table when they travel to Plymouth City Patriots on Friday evening.
The hosts were formed out of the ashes of Plymouth Raiders in the summer, and had a tough debut in the BBL as they lost all eight BBL Cup ties and their first eight BBL Championship games. But they go into the game on a two-game winning streak after an 82-73 home victory against fellow strugglers Surrey Scorchers before a shock 84-77 win at Manchester Giants. Friday's match-up at Plymouth Pavilions will be the first regular season game between the two clubs but Lions comfortably won both BBL Cup encounters, 90-61 at the Copper Box in September and 101-62 in the West Country the following month.
Kofi Joseph leads the scoring for Paul James' team, averaging 21.6 points per game, adding 3.9 rebounds and 3.1 assists, as well as topping the BBL in free-throws (48), while recent signing Rashad Hassan has made a big difference to the Patriots with 19.5 points and a team-high nine rebounds in his his first four games. Another recent addition, Antonio Williams has averaged 18.5 points and 6.5 assists in his first two games. Albanian/British point guard Elvisi Dusha, one of the former Raiders recruited by James, dished out his 2000th BBL assist in the win against Giants, and his averaging 5.7 dimes to go with his 5.1 points.
Lions’ coach James Vear expects a difficult game against the resurgent Patriots:
“They much improved over the last couple of games and winning at Manchester is a great result against one of the best sides in the league” he said.
“Signing Williams has obviously helped Plymouth, and both Kofi and Rashard are doing well for them.
Denzel [Ubiaro] can also be dangerous ,while I spent some time coaching Elvisi with the GB under-20s and he’s a great guy to have around.”
The game sees the three highest scorers in the BBL Championship face off, with Joseph sitting in second place between Lions Dirk Williams (21.7ppg) and Isaiah Reese (18.8ppg).
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