'It's the norm now': Atiba Lyons and Sheffield Sharks left bemused by chaotic end to Cheshire Phoenix game
Sheffield Sharks head coach Atiba Lyons refused to be drawn into a reaction on Monday to what was a chaotic end to his side’s Super League Basketball game at Cheshire Phoenix the previous evening.
A rivalry that was already simmering exploded into a bitter end at Ellesmere Port as technical fouls were handed out like confetti, 70 free throws were awarded and communication between the referees and table officials broke down beyond control.
Both sides felt their team was harshly done to - particularly Sheffield who were punished for 49 of those free throws and saw the usually placid Jordan Ratinho fouled out of the game - but amid it all, Sharks saw a 16-point third-quarter lead evaporate as they lost 114-95.
Many observers felt the current stand-off between the league and the referees was heading towards an outcome like this, but two of the referees that officiated the game - Beyti Ozgur and Tahir Akar - were actually officials who took charge of games last season and had returned to the action.
Lyons spoke eloquently earlier this month about how he had no issues with the standard of officiating by the replacement referees, only to be left bemused on Sunday night amid acrimonious scenes.
“I don’t have a response,” he said on Monday.
“It’s the norm now, you’ve just got to find a way to win despite whatever you’re facing in the game on the day.”
His team’s chances began to unravel when a number of players got into foul trouble and were just one more foul away from being removed from the game.
Asked if his side could have ridden the storm better, Lyons said: “Handling it better is difficult because we had extreme foul trouble to overcome, so you couldn’t have played the players you wanted to play to overcome that anyways, so it was multi-layered in how we could overcome that.”
Sheffield’s reputation under Lyons is built on a good defence, but as he offered in mitigation to conceding 114 points: “They shot 49 free throws, so it’s hard to defend a shot that you can’t defend.”
He did take some encouragement, despite his side slipping to a 3-3 (win-loss) record.
“Losing is never easy and the performances we had we showed for large parts of them that we were capable of being very good, and we’ve got to build on that,” said Lyons.
“One of the things we struggled early with was offensively, we’ve had a lot of games now where we’re starting to put it together a little more and Cheshire is a team that plays very fast and shoots a lot of threes.
“We did a very good job first quarter of keeping our second-chance points down and then the second half they were put in a position where they could capitalise on the game, so we’ve just got to keep going forward.”