Tough Roadtrip for the Heat

The Heat make the long trip to Newcastle to take on the Eagles who have a chance to move level on points with league leaders Sheffield Sharks if they can beat the Heat on Friday night.

Fab Flournoy’s team face the prospect of three games in five days if they can overcome National League side Reading Rockets on Wednesday evening. A far tougher match surely awaits with the arrival of Heat on Tyneside.

Both Newcastle and Guildford had comfortable wins over PAWS London Capital last weekend. After an even first quarter that Capital shaded 16-17 the Eagles turned on the style to run out 112-66 winners.

Flournoy said it wasn’t as easy as the final scoreline makes out: “Last week we played well. London played very well and it was only in the second half where we pulled away. We had a total team effort with all players playing well I just want it to carry on into this week.”

One Newcastle had established a healthy lead Joe Chapman and Charles Smith staged their own shoot-out from long range. Veteran Smith came out on top with six of ten three pointers while Chapman needed two more attempts to make five.

Flournoy said: “Joe, Charles, Lynard (Stewart), and young Brit Jamie Glenn where our stand out players last week.”

Newcastle have Aaron Nielson out of action for a week due to a bad ankle but are otherwise injury free.

Heat’s victory over Capital was a little more straightforward as they built a big first quarter lead before having the luxury of running their bench late in the match.

Forward Julius Joseph was in excellent form as he scooped a position in the BBL team of the week. Joseph stacked the stat line with 23 points, four boards, three assists and three steals.

The teams have met twice this season. On both occasions Newcastle were on the road and after losing the first encounter 102-98 in October they came through 82-75 in their last match of 2009 on December 27.

That win left Flournoy a satisfied man: “We played a good game but struggled in the first quarter,” he said: “The Heat played very well, with a lot of energy, and they beat us last time we were here in a very similar game.

“We needed to pick up our defence in the second half which we did. We cleaned up on the boards – Lynard (Stewart), Charles (Smith) and Darius (Defoe) all got lots of offensive rebounds. It was a case of matching their energy rather than doing anything different.”