Sheffield Sharks v Cheshire Phoenix: Sharks look to find their rhythm after stop-start opening to season
ATIBA LYONS says his Sheffield Sharks team will evolve into a squad that can play a variety of ways – once their schedule finally gives them something to get their teeth into.
Tuesday night’s Super League Basketball encounter with Cheshire Phoenix at Canon Medical Arena will be only their fourth game in six weeks of a stop-start schedule.
While allowing players like Prentiss Nixon and summer signing Mervin James to get up to full speed, it has not done their flow any good, winning just one of those three games since November 16.
“It’s been a bit awkward,” admitted Lyons.
“We’ve just had to make sure we didn’t have many days off consecutively, we’ve trained pretty much the whole time so hopefully we can come at it with a bit of game-readiness.”
A number of players have said it has felt like an extended pre-season, but with one competition now out of their reach in the Trophy, and the defence of the SLB Cup they won last season to get underway in January, the need to come out firing begins now.
And that means Lyons juggling his options.
“We have spoken about it as a team, we are in a pre-season in the sense that even Rodney Chatman and Prentiss haven’t played together with this line-up and Merv is just coming back,” said Lyons.
“We have to be realistic, though, just because you have the talent doesn’t mean you just show up and win, you’ve got to put it all together. We’re still in the process of getting on the same page.
“We are going to be flexible and play different styles, and whatever works best each game will be how we approach it. We’ll have different starting line-ups, different groups.
“There’s no point being this deep and talented and not be able to play different styles.”
They are reunited on Tuesday with a Cheshire team that beat them twice in Ellesmere Port back in October, the second of those a fiery clash in which the league’s ongoing and still unresolved stand-off with the referees reached boiling point.
“Cheshire are fiery in general, that’s their style of play,” said Lyons. “We definitely had a couple of tough games against them but we’ll be ready for that type of occasion.”