Bradford Dragons are now in bottom place in the NBL division 1 league with a 61 – 80 home loss to visitors Essex Leopards, the 2014/15 league winners. Although Leopards started well going 6 points clear, Dragons came back strongly at the end of the first quarter to take the lead only for ex Dragons stalwart Tom Martin, now with the Essex outfit, to come off the bench to sink a triple close to the buzzer to give Leopards a narrow 18 – 17 lead at the first break.
Leopards pulled ahead in the second quarter as both sides fought hard on defence to restrict scoring opportunities but a mini surge of scoring brought Dragons close with the score at 31 – 33 score with 3 minutes to go as the Leopards coach called a time out. The Essex team then imposed an effective full court press that saw Dragons commit several turnovers to give the Leopards a 42 – 35 lead at half time.
In the third quarter, with Dragons unable to score from the perimeter against a tough Essex defence, the visitors established a lead of up to 10 points to end the third quarter 48 – 56 as Dragons power forward Nick Moore fouled out.
Dragons woes continued in the final quarter as big man Ricky Fetske picked up his 5th foul and left the game closely followed by the third and final Dragons big man Przemyslaw Wojcik who picked up a second technical foul. An undersized Dragons team fought on but Leopards eased into a final score to win the game 80 – 61 at the final buzzer. For Dragons Henri Bongoma and Jermayne Laing both scored 11 points whilst Tom Martin led the visitors with 12 points.
After the game, Dragons Coach Chris Mellor said, "We had 25 turnovers on the night 4 guys fouled out and we shot the ball poorly.Our defence wasnt bad for 3 quarters but offensively 61 is not going to win us many games and that's where we will focus our efforts this week."
Dragons now make the road trip on Saturday 21/11/5 to Team Northumbria before returning the Dragons Den for the next home game on Saturday 28/11/15 at 6.15pm against fellow strugglers Westminster Warriors with both sides desperate for a win.
Leopards pulled ahead in the second quarter as both sides fought hard on defence to restrict scoring opportunities but a mini surge of scoring brought Dragons close with the score at 31 – 33 score with 3 minutes to go as the Leopards coach called a time out. The Essex team then imposed an effective full court press that saw Dragons commit several turnovers to give the Leopards a 42 – 35 lead at half time.
In the third quarter, with Dragons unable to score from the perimeter against a tough Essex defence, the visitors established a lead of up to 10 points to end the third quarter 48 – 56 as Dragons power forward Nick Moore fouled out.
Dragons woes continued in the final quarter as big man Ricky Fetske picked up his 5th foul and left the game closely followed by the third and final Dragons big man Przemyslaw Wojcik who picked up a second technical foul. An undersized Dragons team fought on but Leopards eased into a final score to win the game 80 – 61 at the final buzzer. For Dragons Henri Bongoma and Jermayne Laing both scored 11 points whilst Tom Martin led the visitors with 12 points.
After the game, Dragons Coach Chris Mellor said, "We had 25 turnovers on the night 4 guys fouled out and we shot the ball poorly.Our defence wasnt bad for 3 quarters but offensively 61 is not going to win us many games and that's where we will focus our efforts this week."
Dragons now make the road trip on Saturday 21/11/5 to Team Northumbria before returning the Dragons Den for the next home game on Saturday 28/11/15 at 6.15pm against fellow strugglers Westminster Warriors with both sides desperate for a win.
RSS Feed
