Leicester Riders vs Glasgow Rocks: One point and one game from the BBL play-off final

The Glasgow Rocks edged their first leg semi final meeting with the Jelson Homes DMU Leicester Riders 77-76, at one point trapping the Riders between a rock and a hard place during a third quarter run which saw the visitors trailing by 11 and enduring a rocky ride heading into the final quarter.

That’s my allowance of Rock-related words and phrases used for a while. Let’s see what I can do with the Riders…

Trailing by 11 in the second half, Coach Paternostro’s Riders refused to lay down, preferring instead to show their resolve, galloping back into the game and cutting the lead to only one. Paternostro’s team rode point guard Cameron Rundles (who scored 23 points) all the way to the finishing line where at the final buzzer, the score showed the narrowest of advantages for the home town team, 77-76.

I think we can all agree, I won’t be doing that kind of word-wizardy again.

More important than my ability to think of ‘Rock’ and ‘Rider’ related phrases is the fact that the second leg BBL play-off semi-final between the Glasgow Rocks and Leicester Riders, has the potential to be epic.

The equivalent of a free-throw is all that separates the two sides heading into Loughborough University Sunday and come the end of the game, that one point may be the difference between moving on to the BBL Play-off final and that same team starting their summer early. Coach Paternostro, however, is not going to lose any sleep over the single point loss:

“I don’t think it’s a problem,” said Paternostro on the loss. “I don’t think a one point deficit is that big of a deal. I think we’re in a position that if we win the 40 minutes on Sunday, the worst we can do is go to overtime.

“We wanted to go up there and win the game. That was our goal. We wanted Sunday to be another situation where we didn’t want to have to worry about making up any aggregate score or doing a lot of mathematics.

“Give the Rocks credit, they played well, they frustrated us for a lot of the game. But when we walked off the court last night, we felt pretty good about ourselves. We feel like we can do some things better.”

The ‘things’ that Paternostro is referring to must include his team’s ability to shoot the ball better from outside. Finishing the game shooting 27% from long range was a big improvement for a team that started off firing blanks from three.

“We didn’t shoot the ball well and that was an issue,” admitted Paternostro. “But hey, we’ve played a lot of games this year and when we don’t shoot it well we still can do some things to get a result.”

Hot shooting is definitely going to help this Riders team overcome a tough Rocks team who are looking to reach their first play-off final since 2009. The Riders franchise hasn’t been back to the big dance since they last won it in the 2000 season.

A lot is at stake for both sides and come early evening, we will know for sure whether Glasgow is as solid as a Rock or if it will be Leicester who are riding off into the sunset with a win.

(I couldn’t help myself).