English Basketball League Championship playoffs, quarter-final

The game introductions in a deafening arena included snow white fireworks and the Worcester team emerging onto court with Wolves' heads on. 1st Quarter (22-23 Worthing): seven changes of lead and nine straight Shaw points are countered by a 6-0 Thunder move to lead 17-15. Moore has eight points in Thunder's recovery run of 14-7 to that juncture. With all Wolves' three-point men trying their sighters, Shaw strikes for 11-9 and Matt Collins for 20-19 '” then Thunder's David Butterworth for 22-20, only to pick up a second foul. Chicken Smith then makes his first substitutions with James Brame and Okolie Ugbana for Butterworth and Knox. Here Solvason hits his first basket of the night but a Daniel Hildreth free gives Worthing the quarter-break lead. 2nd Quarter (18-17 Wolves): Shaw, the best new white power forward in the division, hits Wolves first basket but nothing until, the half, stalling on 11 points as the Thunder D intensifies around him. Ugbana starts the quarter with two straight offensive fouls and is to sit out until the closing stages. Thunder, after two straight Knox fouls to reach three personal, four team, respondto an 8-0 Wolves run with an 8-0 to tie it at 33 with four minutes left. During this run, Pat Bates is in the game and starting maybe his best defensive performance for Thunder in which he avoids the referees' attention. Worthing's lightning transition feeds off his defence. But in the closing stages, three-point weapon Butterworth iscalled for his third foul and his querulous reaction gets him a fourth with a technical. Hildreth rebounds to release Gayle, then adds a free to tie it on 40 at the half. There have been 12 changes of lead. Solvason hits seven points in the quarter and Gayle six. Half-time: 40-40 3rd quarter (24-16 Wolves): Wolves jump out 13-0 as Chicken Smith's gamble of risking Butterworth fails. The player misses two threes and Gayle one as well. Moore unbelievably misses four in a row from the line, the second two after rebounding his second miss and drawing a foul from Shaw. Knox receives his fourth foul, a technical after Barry Lamble appears to foul him but as Bates rejoins the game, Thunder finally break their five-minute duck through Brame and halt the Wolves run from 53-40 down. Gayle continues to make only half his several free throws but suddenly drains two succesive threes and the deficit is cut to six at 53-39 with two minutes left. Moore rebounds, Gayle scores on the fast break but Josh Cooprider, guilty of some poor shot selection all night, scores on the buzzer to briefly stretch the lead back out to eight. 4th quarter (25-20 Thunder): Thunder start some serious offensive rebounding and another Gayle three trims it to five at 63-68 with eight minutes left. Yet his own defensive shortcomings mean Chicken pulls him out of the game, notwithstanding his heat, for 2 minutes. Solvason still can't do anything wrong and makes a three from the left corner for a potentially damaging 73-63, despite Bates fouling him, fooled by the fake, but the referees not noticing. After Moore hauls four points back, Shaw is fouled for the first time by Moore '” but misses both frees with 5:25 to go. Knox is back in the game on four fouls and his four cocksure free throws and one by Gayle give Thunder their first lead inthe half at 74-73. Solvason comes back with a two and Shaw with a free to lead 77-75 when Sam Mead's second spell in the game starts with 3:27 left. Worthng are goijg with tree guards again, going for pace and Gayle inspires two equalising baskets and at 79-79 Shaw arrives on four fouls at 1:48. Moore tips in for an 81-79 lead but Cooprider at last makes a three and it's 82-81 Wolves at 1:25. Chicken Smith replaces Mead with Butterworth for the final throes. Eventually only seven seconds remain and on a Hildreth pass, Moore beats Shaw coming in from the wing and rises to lay in, double handed, unopposed at moderate pace. It spins out '” if only he had dunked . . . . The rebound ends up out of play with possession to Wolves at 0:2.1sec on the clock. After Chicken, then Jim Smith call successive time-outs, for the baseline inbounds pass, three Wolves come short and Shaw throws long over their heads. Just inside the Thunder half, Ugbana has to foul the catcher, Colin Chiverton, immediately to earn time for a last rapid Thunder possession after the free throws. But it's rightly called unsportsmanlike and there's no way back for Worthing after Chiverton sinks both bonus shots. Quotes from the quarter-final Jim Smith, (American coach of Worcester Wolves): "It was a one-possession game. Simple as that. We grabbed the all-important rebound. Worthing are the leading scorers in the league, they like to run and run and run '” but so do we, and we can play better defence than Worthing. We knew we needed to stop them getting second-time scoring chances but that's how they got back into it. They got some easy lay-ins. Steven Gayle rose to the occasion but all credit to our team '” they stuck to the game plan, even when Worthing pulled back from 13 points down. We saw Worthing go to three guards (Hildreth, Gayle, Brame, Mead, in various combinations] and we matched three smal guys with three of ours. That's how Rick Solvason got so much more court time than usual. But David Butterworth being on foul trouble hurt Worthing. Ty Shaw (6ft 8in forward; Boise, Idaho): "Gaylon Moore plays tough and he's a wonderful player to play against. He's a great athlete, very intelligent and he doesn't do a load of bad talking at you. But that basket he missed: that was the game right there. Rick Solvason really kept us ahead but the refereeing seemed to be inconsistent for both teams. Against Sheffield we lost by only one point at home. It's a great place to play, here, and I'm confident about our chances in the semi-finals. 'DJ' (Thunder Team manager): "I don't normally go in the dressing room straight after the game but it was very quiet; everyone was upset, everyone was hurt by the way it ended. Danny Hildreth and Gaylon Moore were particularly so '” I think they're both emotional players. David Butterworth was upset by his technical foul But the team did talk about giving themselves credit for coming back from 13 points down and that they were all in it together.