Sheffield Sharks, like Sheffield United, hoping time is a great healer before play-off bid

Next challenge: Sheffield Sharks head coach Atiba Lyons is preparing his team for next week's play-offs.

Overcoming title disappointment to get steeled for the play-offs is a popular theme in Sheffield sports at present.

Sheffield United need to find the mental strength to go again in pursuit of the Premier League having missed out on automatic promotion.

Sheffield Steelers couldn’t do it - falling short in the final period of the regular season and then losing the grip on their play-off crown with an overtime defeat in the semi-final.

Sheffield Sharks face a similar scenario. Their quest for a first British basketball league title in more than two decades came up empty last Friday night, meaning Atiba Lyons has spent the following days and this final weekend of the regular season, trying to pick up his players ahead of next weekend’s play-offs.

The Blades fell short with two games to go, the Steelers came unstuck on the final night. Will the Sharks, like United, benefit from having longer to process that initial disappointment?

“It could help mentally,” admits Lyons, “or sometimes it fuels you when you’ve fallen short that you want to redeem yourself.

“For us, we’ve had such a tumultuous season. But the energy is still great, they want to win, they’re doing all the right things, they’re focused, they’re playing hard.

“So we’re confident we’re in a good place. Missing out on the title was disappointing, but we’ve fought hard, we did the best we could, we’ve just fallen a little short of that particular goal.

“But there’s still so much to play for and we’ve achieved a goal already this season (winning the SLB Cup), so we’re just keeping our focus on the next thing and not worrying about the past, good or bad.”

For weeks, Sunday’s regular-season finale at home against London Lions had the tantalising prospect of being the title decider. As it is, Sheffield need to use it to continue getting Prentiss Nixon healthy and gain a bit of belief that the champions are fallible, having lost to them three times this season.

“We’ve got to assume we’re going to see them again down the road, if we want to win the play-offs,” said Lyons.

“It’ll be a good measure for us going up against London, to get ourselves ready for the play-offs.”