The Plymouth City Patriots are, so far, still without a win in their league campaign, after a narrow loss to former BBL Champions, the Leicester Riders.
The Riders, who suffered a shock defeat last weekend to Cheshire Phoenix, were heavy favourites ahead of Friday night's clash and they were themselves looking for their first win of the season.
On the night, the Patriots would not make it easy for Leicester. After a tightly contested first quarter the Patriots took the lead, and held it until the closing minutes of the fourth quarter, when the Riders home fans who, up until that point, had been silenced by the Patriots play, suddenly sprung into life. The home side managed to wrestle control of the game and hit key shots down the stretch, securing an 88-81 victory over the visitors.
"Massive improvement. We can take some great heart from this game," said head coach Paul James post game. He continued, "there's still plenty to work on, but we were the better team for the majority of the night. We'll have to go back over the game tape and analyse the latter stages of this one, but the effort was there and we'll take the same levels into the next game."
Mason Faulkner was back and fully fit for Friday night's loss, but certainly gave Patriots fans a sample of exactly what he can do. He connected very well with both Jacob Wiley and TJ Atwood to give the Plymouth side an impressive nucleus, they now offer up some versatility and identity moving forward.
The Patriots long awaited return to Plymouth is finally here as the team looks to prepare for their first home fixture of the season. The tip off is scheduled for Friday night, 7:30pm and tickets have already been selling like hotcakes. Plymouths premier basketball team is set to take on the Manchester Giants and could well take to the floor as slight favourites, giving the fans at Pavilions something to shout about.
Pablo Cheeks
