he Newcastle Eagles men’s team travel to Sheffield on Sunday afternoon for a northern shoot-out in the SLB Championship. Both sides are going into the game on the back of big confidence boosting Friday night victories.
The B. Braun Sharks travelled to last season’s SLB Playoff Champions Leicester Riders and came away with a huge 93 points to 65 road win with Prentiss Nixon leading the way with 21 points and Rodney Chatman III netting 15.
Eagles meanwhile had a tremendous opening home victory in front of a packed Vertu Motors Arena downing the Cheshire Phoenix 88 – 70 with ex-Nix standout Maceo Jack pacing his new side with 24 points and Brett Reed adding 14. They go into the game two from two so far this season.
Head Coach Marc Steutel was pleased with his side’s efforts at both ends of the floor in what was a good all-round team performance. But he was particularly pleased with the defensive effort as he reflected on the win and looked forward to the trip to Sheffield.
“That’s the blueprint that we wanted to show this week. I said last week it was a character win but defensively I don’t think we were anywhere near what we want to try and be consistently. “Cheshire are a really difficult team to defend for over a long period of time with the way they play.”
“To have the second quarter when we held them to 12 and the fourth quarter when we held them to 17 where defended well one-on-one, took charges and put our bodies on the line and where we fought on switches. It was a really, really pleasing display of defensive basketball.”
“The challenge at times is team’s need their defence usually to fuel their offence. You’ve got to make sure that you don’t rely on one for the other.”
“Experience tells me that when the guys are defending that way and getting stops then we can get out on the break that really fuelled our offence and we did a great job of sharing the ball.”
Despite a helter-skelter start to the game where both teams struggled to score it was clear that Steutel’s defensive game plan was in play from the first tip and the offence came later.
“I felt that defensively we were ok and it was just about trying to see the ball going through a few times. The team over the last couple of weeks have had 25 assists last weekend and 18 tonight. That shows we’re able to share the ball and play off matchups.”
“We’ve got a long, long way to go. It’s important to make sure that everyone knows we’re only two games in. But there are positives signs of the DNA we can show as a Newcastle Eagles basketball team.”
The Eagles had five players in double figures with Cole Long, Marco Anthony and Ray’sean Taylor joining Jack and Reed in netting well and Mitch Clarke just behind them on 8 points. Steutel was delighted with that.
“Mitch defended scrappy, lived and breathed the scouting report and was out there organising the guys. Super happy for Mitch. It was a real team effort. Marco had 10 rebounds to go with his 13 points and two assists and defended everything.”
“he way in which we’re showing stuff at the minute is showing that we’re going to have the ability to defend when we are consistent with it. We’ve had two completely different styles of game. We have to make sure we have to reset and refocus and get ready for Sheffield on Sunday.”
Sheffield were many pundits tip to have a good season and be a major challenger. They slipped up at Bristol in their first game but were in fine form at Leicester on Friday night.
“It’s early. They struggled down at Bristol last week. But Atiba (Lyons) is exceptionally experienced and a good coach and I knew they would bounce back and they did it in style at Leicester. We’ll get a chance to watch their game and then see what we can do.”
“For us at the minute it’s about trying to see the opportunities in front of us and see what we can do from there. But for now, I’m pleased with the habits and behaviours that we’re showing and we can continue to build our basketball.”
The next building block can hopefully be cemented in place at the Canon Medical Centre in Sheffield on Sunday afternoon with the game tipping off at 15:00pm and is live and free to view on DAZN Sports and via The Eagles Media Channels.
