The London Lions crowned themselves the inaugural Super League Basketball Championship winners tonight with a commanding 97–80 victory over Leicester Riders at the Copper Box Arena.
In the final act of a thrilling three-way title race between the Lions, Riders and B. Braun Sheffield Sharks, Petar Bozic’s Londoners delivered impressively in this high-stakes encounter to seal the Championship title with the end of the Regular Season just days away.
London struck first on the night, setting the tone with a dominant 25–11 opening quarter behind the offensive prowess of Terrell Holloway – who is very much showing that he is a man for the big occasion as the post-season nears with a string of clutch performances.
The Riders, meanwhile, couldn’t get going from deep in the opening stanza and London’s suffocating interior defence made easy buckets to get a rhythm hard to come by, as the gap extended in the second quarter to a huge 21 points by the halftime interval.
Leicester, fighting to stay in the title hunt, regrouped in the second half with their highest scoring quarter of the game coming out of the break, but with a 27-26 margin in the third in favour of the visitors it wasn’t enough to make a meaningful dent in the deficit going into the final period.
London’s relentless rebounding (41 to 33) and superior three-point shooting (11-of-27 for 40%) ensured there was no way back for Leicester, who gave young players an invaluable opportunity to experience SLB Championship action in the final period as Edward Onyia in particular grabbed headlines with six points in three minutes of action.
After an MVP-like performance with 23 points and eight rebounds, Jaiden Delaire reflected on the Lions’ victory, telling DAZN:
“We knew we were playing for a Championship tonight so we had to come out and give it our all and that’s exactly what we did.
“[Playing great defence] is part of what we want to do, especially coming into the home stretch of the season, where we know we all have each other’s backs and we’re going to give it our all to get it done.
“We’re focussed on the goal at hand which is winning the big one [the Play-off title], and we’re going to do everything in our power to secure that.”
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