It was a good night for Newcastle Eagles in the British Basketball League, as the table-toppers stretched their winning streak and one of their title rivals slipped up.
Eagles eased past Leeds Force 94-56 thanks to a hot start and 20 points from Scott Martin to make it 13 consecutive league victories.
The Eagles then followed this up by beating Manchester Giants 115-76 on Saturday night, as they posted their highest points tally of the campaign so far and eight players scored in double-digits, led by Andre Jones’s 17 points.
Newcastle have now won 17 straight games over a period of three months.
The only team to beat the reigning champions in this season are second-placed Worcester Wolves.
But Paul James’ side suffered just their fourth league defeat of the season, 75-70 at home to London Lions.
Rod Brown had 18 points, six rebounds and five assists for the Lions, helped by Andrew Sullivan, who tallied 15 points and 11 boards.
Leicester Riders moved within two points of Wolves and into third spot with a convincing 85-56 road win at Surrey United.
Sheffield Sharks’ resurgence continued with a 69-55 defeat of Glasgow Rocks in Yorkshire.
Despite a defeat earlier, Manchester Giants bounced back and with that, took a big step towards the playoffs with an 80-69 victory over Durham Wildcats to leapfrog their opponents into the playoff positions, but more importantly secure the head-to-head tie-breaker, having now won two of the teams’ three league meetings this season.
Cheshire Phoenix were another big winner, beating London Lions 84-75 to extend their winning run to eight games and move level on points with second-placed Worcester Wolves.
Plymouth Raiders secured a much-needed 100-88 home success against Surrey United.
Raiders handed debuts to new signings Ben Mockford and Jordan Clarke and both logged solid debuts, but Australian Josh Wilcher stole the show with an incredible 17 assists to go with 20 points and seven rebounds.
