Lions Trounce Riders by a Fair Degree at the Copper Box

Hopperational details
Date & Venue	Sunday 1 April 2018 at The Copper Box Arena
Result	London Lions 93 Leicester Riders 72
Competition	British Basketball League (Top tier).
Hopstats	16th venue where I have watched live competitive basketball, my first basketball game for about five years.  Bonus chemistry point if you spotted the pun in the blogpost title.
Context
With Saturday soccer groundhopping washed out, and every prospect of the same again on Monday, this fixture caught my eye.  When the Yapplets were teenagers, we spent many a Sunday afternoon at Bletchley Leisure Centre watching the Milton Keynes Lions.  Since then, I’ve made a few solo diversions to games for this blog, and the Lions have relocated via Crystal Palace to the Copper Box in the Olympic Park.  Leicester Riders have been a very successful side in recent seasons and are comfortably leading the league before the play-offs begin.  London Lions are in mid table but had a good win at home on Friday night against second-placed Newcastle Eagles.  So, I headed for East London expecting a tight and competitive game.
In one sentence
It wasn’t tight and competitive, and I’m not impressed.
So what?
Leicester will have to wait before their league win is confirmed.  London improve their position in the jockeying for the best playoff draws.
Match Report
Lions continued their good form from last week and were leading 23-11 at the end of the first quarter.  They were definitely up for the contest.  Nothing spectacular, just good execution of their attacking plays and good rebounding in their own defence. By half-time the lead had been cut slightly to eight points, at 44-36, and there isn’t a Lions fan anywhere who wouldn’t have bitten your hand off for that score against the league leaders.  Maybe not the best analogy I’ve ever come up with, I’m sure lions can’t really be blamed for hand-biting, but I digress.  A 44-36 lead was remarkable.  Cory Dixon had 16 points personal, and although Riders had briefly threatened to draw level towards the end of the second quarter, Lions nailed a couple of threes to settle any nerves. Having seen Riders coach Rob Paternostro both towards the end of his playing career, and early in his tenure as a coach, I expected better from hair-dried Riders in the second half.  It didn’t happen.  The lead opened out to 50-36, then 55-40 and then 66-46 after an unsportsmanlike foul had been given against Riders.  The third quarter ended with the score at 70-51 and even more surprisingly with Paternostro sitting down rather than pacing the touchline like an angry vulture.  For all the world it looked like they had given up on this one. In the fourth quarter, Lions slowed the game a little with time on their side.  Some of their bench players got court time.  Paternostro, now awake, said something to an official, who promptly awarded a technical foul against him.  The coach must have responded again, because a second T-sign followed and he was ejected.  There were an embarrassing few moments whilst he collected some things and muttered to his staff, before sloping off to the changing rooms.  All very strange and unexpected.  Even the Lions fans were a bit stunned.  It finished 93-72. Cheerio etc etc If you are Vince Macaulay (back once again in charge of the Lions) or a Lions fan, you won’t be unduly concerned.  Three consecutive wins put the team in a better place for the play-off run in.  You will have lost so many times against the Riders in recent seasons that you won’t give a hoot about Paternostro’s departure or the strange lethargy of the opposition today.  You’ll only care if you had money on the odds-on Riders win as part of what I understand the young people of today call an acca.  Their last defeat was in mid-January at Newcastle, and this is only their third league defeat of the season.  I cannot fault the Lions at all – this was a job well done, and they wanted this result.  Leicester, by and large, had the day off.  Five of the Lions ended up with double-digit points tallies, with Justin Robinson’s strong second half taking him to 25 personal.  Dixon finished with 20 and Brandon Peel weighed in with 18.  Pierre Hampton top-scored for Riders with 15.  They have played three top-tier games in less than a week, impressive in any context. As for me, did this rekindle my desire to re-connect with professional basketball in this country?  Frankly, no.  It really didn’t.  Despite Herculean efforts (and I am aware that Mr Macaulay has been centre-stage at times in trying hard to take the game forward in this country), UK basketball seems to be in transition yet again.  It is fighting for national funding.  Superleague netball has a better TV product.  The team at the bottom of this top-tier league is turning up short-handed for fixtures.  My ticket, including Ticketmaster fee AND a bizarre £1 fee for printing my own ticket at home (how can that possibly be justified?), was £22.45.  Most of the regular football groundhopper readers of this blog (hello, both of you) would get at least two non-league games for that.  And a pie.  Sorry about the palpitations I may have caused you two, there.  I feel quite sad in writing this because I really, really wanted it to be better. Any sport that is played with the Benny Hill theme occasionally playing in the background should be encouraged.
Stadium Pix
I never managed to get a ticket for the Copper Box during the 2012 Olympics, so this is a new venue for me.  Externally, it has to be one of the ugliest Boxes around.  Inside, it is spacious and welcoming.  Only the lower tier is needed today.  I made the mistake of bringing the car today and Stratford was gridlocked with roadworks.  I ended up parking a bit further north at Redbridge tube station.  I think on any future occasion I would leave the car even further out.  It is a brisk but interesting 15-minute walk through the Olympic Park from Stratford station to the arena.
Match Pix
What Next?
Follow @GrahamYapp on Twitter for details!  The preferred plan for tomorrow is to head for Athersley Recreation v Garforth.  However, the weather forecast is for doom, hurricane, avalanche and a plague of frogs or something like that, so it will be a late call.