THUNDER PAY THE PRICE

R.BARKER THUNDER enter their second back-to-back weekend of home matches with their honours eligibility needing some repair work against Worcester Wolves on Saturday then a National Cup semi-final place at stake against PAWS London Capitals on Sunday.

Up-tempo, promoted Division 2 champions Wolves last weekend took Manchester Magic to within three points, then won comfortably at Coventry while Worthing were without one-match suspended big bench forward Okolie Ugbana and unavailable head coach Gary Smith and losing 98-84 at Reading.

Capitals were promoted as NW London and after four losses will be coming to Worthing off their first Division 1 win '” also at Coventry.

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Both matches tip off at 8pm with the accent being on Sunday, when Thunder stand two matches from their second cup final in a year.

Statistician Alan Sweetman-Hicks was thrown into the deep end to coach the team and Reading, beaten heavily by defending champions Thunder in the National Trophy last month at Rivermead, capitalised.

Only four points up at half-time, Rockets, led by 30-point guard EJ Harrison, shot away to win the third quarter 27-10 while American centre Teon Knox sat down its last seven minutes on four fouls without Ugbana to replace him.

Rockets took a decisive 23-point advantage into the final stanza and maintained a 100% league record.

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Explained Sweetman-Hicks: "We had to go smaller without Teon at that stage and Okolie could have looked after their 7ft centre James Cook. We went to a kind of zone defence and Reading picked it apart.

"In the end our 14-point deficit is manageable in the league head-to-head: we could beat them by as many in the return match at home.

"But by trimming back our deficit from 23 to 14 in the final quarter we sent out a warning to Reading that our 22-point advantage over them in the Trophy with the home match to come in December, is a much bigger gap to bridge assuming we've got Okolie and Gary back."

Ugbana was ejected in the victory away to Essex & Herts Leopards.

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