Under-strength Sheffield Sharks suffer record home loss to unbeaten Leicester Riders

Sport never did do perfect narratives.

There is more to the scoreline than meets the eye, though. Leicester Riders are unbeaten in the league all season, reached the first cup final of the campaign earlier in the festive period and are benefitting from gametime that the Sharks have been bereft of.

Indeed, this was Sheffield’s first action since December 8 due to Covid in opponents’ camps forcing postponements.

They also now have Covid in their own camp, two players down with it, and they are in the middle of a transitional period at shooting guard with Jonathan Williams exiting last week and new signing Devante Wallace not in the country until this week.

It meant that for the visit of the league leaders and in front of a crowd in excess of 1,200 at Ponds Forge, they only had eight players in rotation against the 10 of the Riders.

“Leicester are a very strong and talented side,” said Sharks head coach Atiba Lyons. “That’s one of the best I’ve seen here, they did a good job on us.

“They’ve got quality in depth and it just wears you down.”

Sharks fronted up well in the first quarter, keeping Leicester within reach at 24-20 behind after 10 minutes, but the Riders stepped up a gear in the second quarter and Sheffield struggled to live with them.

Jordan Ratinho had a strong game behind the arc, sinking five of seven three-pointers in his team-leading 21-point haul. In fact, Sharks matched Leicester from three-point range, it was just in the paint where the bigger side scored 38 points more than their hosts.

“We did some really good things defensively against a big line-up. The effort was there, the passion was there, we moved the ball well, the shots just weren’t falling,” added Lyons, for whom the bigger frustration has been the long lay-off between games.

“Where we left off, winning a game at Plymouth, it was not a great win, but we’ve not had chance to keep correcting and keep moving forward; we’re going backwards.”