London Lions 82, Surrey Scorchers 90
To the Copper Box!… blah blah blah on Friday evening.
These recurring blog posts don’t write themselves, y’know.
The London Lions were at home to the Surrey Scorchers. I’m not sure which team name is more inappropriate. I’ve only ever seen a very docile lion at London Zoo. The county of Surrey is far from scorching.
Welcome to Stratford, Welcome to the Jungle, etc.
Blimey.
That was LOUD. The London Lionesses [not making this up…] did their rather ACE dance routine to a bit of G ‘n’ R ahead of the tip off.
The half term hip hop yoof looked on oblivious.
On the court and the Lions look set to dominate in the first quarter. This was a ball game against a basement BBL team, struggling to make the end of season play-offs.
I confess that my attention was switched from court side to my bloody phone during the first passages of play. I once again had almost 5GB of school videos to upload.
The freebie Copper Box WiFi was a big influence on my decision to attend. I apologise for almost sabotaging the Man of the Match text in vote by bringing the whole bloody network down.
The Lions took a 28-20 lead going into the first buzzer.
The Scorchers… turned up the heat in the second. But it was still pretty tepid to be honest.
Lions weren’t clock watching, falling foul of the shot clock on a couple of occasions. It was left to the ever reliable Alex Owumi to hit back with some big three pointers.
49-38 to the home team at half time.
I’m not sure what happened to the Lions mascot during the break. Mr Lion was AWOL.
#JeSuisCecil, etc.
The second half of the game should have been something of a stroll for the Lions. You don’t take a 20 point ball game lead into the third quarter and bugger it up.
Do you?
But the Lions started to fanny about, thinking that they were showcasing their skills in a demonstration game, rather than a BBL match with the play-offs fast approaching.
An injured Nick Lewis disrupted the flow of the game. The poor fella was reduced to dry humping the Copper Box court with some bizarre stretching ritual behind the home bench.
Even the Lionesses shot their load, taking to the court with the Scorchers about to take some free throws.
Still - a 76-55 home lead ahead of the fourth meant that we were in for a dull final quarter of the game.
But wait! What’s this?
The Scorchers took the fourth 33-6 in points, chasing what seemed like an impossible charge on the scoreboard.
The away team took the lead for the first time in the match with 1:30 remaining on the clock.
It was all a little too much for a ‘tired and emotional’ young Polish fella sitting near me. His rants were most impressive. I’m not entirely sure who he was supporting to be honest.
And so an unlikely 90-82 home court Copper Box defeat for the Lions.
These recurring blog posts don’t write themselves, y’know.