Fri 12th March - Eagles v Riders 7:30pm SKY

Yeah that’s fair for his 1st game back

Kinda expected this result tonight having watched a few Riders games recently and watched every Eagles game this season. To me it looks like Eagles have been found out this season and if they can't play in transition there appears to be no plan B whatsoever. Some of the half court offence is horrific to watch at times.

I've said it quite a bit this year (although less vociferously due to the current climate), a lack of depth prevents Eagles from being anywhere near a title challenger. I know Sky have to talk up the game, but there was no way tonight had any bearing on an Eagles assault on the league. The drop off when Eagles go to their second unit is there for all to see. Riders took full advantage of Fletcher being off the floor for an extended period and we had some of our bench players chasing shadows the entire time. Riders seemed to be able to score consistently no matter who they had on the floor, although assisted with some anaemic Newcastle defense at times.

Riders look a really good team this year (every year to be fair!) and I hope they go on to take the league over London. Their record this season has been amazing and even the games they've lost have been super close. Stark contrast to the Eagles who seem to have developed a worrying habit of throwing the towel in and picking up heavy defeats over the past couple of seasons.

Yeah he was good tonight. Probably his best game for us. That's what we need from him. He's been getting good looks all season and just missing shots.

I've been critical of Fraser and Falzon but they both did their job tonight. If they can come in and give us 8/10 points each, Fraser knock down the mid range jumper and Falzon knock down the open 3. If those two do that we become really, really tough to beat. Those shots are there every game. Just got to make them.

More of the same Sunday please.

So so easy for riders tonight not sure what Coach Mac was thinking with some strange rotations

I wouldn't say Fraser got a bunch of particularly great looks in this one. I'm mostly remembering mid range stuff and a really tough hook shot after he attempted unsuccessfully to outmuscle Gordon in the lane. He certainly got some kind rolls too. Seemed like virtually every shot he got up hit every inch of the rim before falling through. I doubt he goes 5-6 (we'll ignore the 3PA) too often with those looks and he failed to register a rebound. But at the end of the day, the shots did ultimately go in last night and Riders won by 26 so naturally fans are pleased. I think the criticism of Fraser has been largely justified tbh. He's an experienced pro who's been producing consistently at this sort of level for a long time now and I imagine we expected better from him. That being said, he's turned in enough OK performances to still be a reasonable backup big.

The repeated criticism of Falzon I think has been largely unfair. This is a rookie who was brought in (in place of no one) to play 10 mpg and add some size and shooting and basic depth to our bench. And in my view he's performed that role adequately. Given that we're talking here about a guy who was a borderline top 100 recruit out of high school, turned down offers from the likes of Marquette and NC State, spent three years playing meaningful minutes in the Big Ten... I'd say that for a last guy off the bench in the BBL, he really has quite a lot going for him. Excellent yesterday I thought. Really demonstrated well everything he can bring to a team at this level. But anyone expecting him to make sizeable box score contributions on a consistent basis will ultimately remain disappointed. No one's doing that with the minutes he's getting.

On the whole I think Riders' bench has taken a rather disproportionate share of the blame for our recent wobbles. If you ignore misleading stuff like +/- and just look at straightforward numbers the criticism of our backups in the Wolves defeat looks completely absurd. Quiet one for Falzon admittedly but Fraser and Anderson both put up 9 and 5 on 57 and 66% shooting respectively and Conner went for 15 and 5 and and pretty much put the team on his back down the stretch. Meanwhile Geno was basically the only starter who showed up. Lee was limited to 15 minutes, presumably due to injury. Corey, DNH and Heron combined for 23 points on an eye watering 32 field goal attempts. They were awful! And still I'm flicking through that game thread and hearing about how bad the bench is and how Fraser and Falzon aren't pulling their weight. Just bizarre really.

Excellent performance yesterday regardless. I think it's fairly unlikely but if we do get an efficient 43 point contribution from our bench tomorrow I like us to win. If we don't, and we lose, I look forward to hearing about how it was the bench's fault, regardless of how little some starters (including a highly decorated recent addition) may or may not have contributed. 

Don’t forget other than Cortez and fletch nobody else turned up for eagles so perhaps some of those numbers were slightly flattering, guess we will see if it’s a flash in the pan or not against London , as for eagles roll on the playoffs, another season showing the pattern of starting great and fading badly