Sheffield Sharks: Mike Tuck hopes practice pays off to seal overdue win against Cheshire Phoenix

A Wednesday night win at Plymouth City Patriots in early December was the last time Atiba Lyons’s side celebrated a win. A succession of postponements followed by a record home defeat by Leicester Riders and a disappointing surrender to Manchester Giants in the BBL Trophy last Friday, places a huge emphasis on the visit of Cheshire Phoenix in the league tonight.

“It’s been a tough week,” admits captain Mike Tuck in the wake of the loss to Manchester.

“Atiba and the coaches have been really on us in practice, and we want to get out of this rut. It’s been a good week of practice and hopefully that translates to the game on Friday.”

So what needs to be put right?

“There’s a lot we can improve on both ends of the floor,” admits Tuck, who is only five points away from becoming the Sharks’ all-time record points scorer.

“Defensively our rotations have to be better. We need to be smarter on the defensive end, picking up sooner on who the shooter is, who isn’t the shooter.

“But it’s our offence that needs the most work.

“We need to be a team that can score 80 or 90 points and right now we’re just not there. We’ve been working on getting our guards and ‘bigs’ more in rhythm. We’re confident the rhythm and the cohesion is getting better.”

Not that Cheshire will make it easy. “Cheshire is a team we haven’t matched up well with in recent times. They can be a tough team to guard and have some good pieces,” said Tuck.