Battling Newcastle Eagles lost a first game in four on a night of high drama inside a vocal Vertu Motors Arena.

In front of former coach and British basketball legend Fabulous Flournoy — fresh from his latest NBA campaign with the Philadelphia 76ers — the hosts finished the game with just four players.

But that was only part of the story as Cole Long was rushed to hospital and both Marc Steutel and Sauveur Kande were ejected from a typically feisty affair against fierce rivals Leicester Riders.

Newcastle were already missing sidelined Seneca Knight and long-term absentee Malcolm Delpeche for the final home game of the regular season.

But come the full-time buzzer Long, Darius Defoe and Josh Ward-Hibbert had all been added to a mounting list of injured stars.

Steutel was thrown out of the game midway through the fourth quarter on the back of a double technical.

And when Kande committed an unsportsmanlike foul — minutes after picking up a technical of his own — he was forced to follow his head coach to the locker room.

Mike Okauru’s fifth foul with 62 seconds on the clock left acting coach Sam Mamuini with no other option than to finish the game with four players.

And an aghast Flournoy must have wondered what he’d come home to as the Riders capitalised on their opponents’ misfortune to stay one step ahead of Sheffield Sharks in the race for second spot.

After crashing to the floor underneath his own basket, Long lost a tooth and split his lip 27 minutes into a bruising encounter that had already seen Defoe exit before the break.

One of a series of incidents that went unpunished by the officials left the homecourt crowd incensed.

And as the foul count continued to move wildly in Leicester’s favour, former Riders favourite Ward-Hibbert banged bodies in front of the Newcastle bench before collapsing in agony, clutching his right knee.

With the men in black pleading for protection from the officials, an increasingly irate Steutel felt forced to take matters into his own hands — an impassioned call for action earning him an instant ejection with 4min 39seconds to play.

By then those Eagles still left on court were looking seriously fatigued with memories of a lightning start fading fast.

Newcastle had stormed into a 12-2 lead after flying out of the blocks thanks to in-form playmaker Trey Pulliam.

The all-action guard gets better by the week and expect all eyes to be on the do-it-all American come the playoffs.

Pulliam was one of six first quarter Eagles scorers as the hosts went in search of a fourth straight win — shooting five of seven threes to open up a deserved 30-23 lead.

An even second period was Super League Basketball at its free-flowing best but Newcastle were already racking up far more fouls than their rivals.

And a two-point half-time lead turned into a six-point third quarter deficit with Leicester scoring 24 points from 33 visits to the bonus stripe come the final buzzer.

As Eagles’ players dropped like flies down the stretch, attention was already turning to the playoff quarter-finals.

And despite Defoe hauling himself off the bench to play the final minute, Mamuini made the most sensible decision of the night by sending British basketball’s most decorated player back to his seat with the game lost and the bigger picture in mind.

Pulliam, Christian James, De’Sean Allen-Eikens and Will Neighbour saw out the remainder of the fourth period and all four will be expected to carry the load against Cheshire on Sunday as Steutel awaits updates on the remainder of his battered roster.

The post-season action tip-off next Friday in the SLB Play-Offs Quarter-Finals with tickets available from the box office.