West Anglia Fury 70 (110,29,51)
Leopards 74 (11, 35,61)

Leigh Greenan led the Leopards for the first time with 20 points as they made hard work of beating bottom side Fury on Saturday.

It was a depleted Big Cats team that traveled to King’s Lynn, with star guard Carl Latham-Henry and centre Lee McCarthy both missing from the side due to injury, but coach Jon Burnell was still far from satisfied with the victory:

“We started slowly, and never really got going. Obviously we missed Carl and Lee, but we had the chance to put the game away in the fourth, and we never took it.”

Despite that disappointment, the win leaves Leopards in fourth place in the EBL Division One as they face a crunch home game against Bristol Academy Flyers on Saturday.

A terrible first period saw Fury take the lead through Patrick Manifold, before a pair of Greenan baskets and a Gareth Laws trey give them a 7-2 lead.

Fury responded and an 8-2 run, split only by a Matt Eames basket put them 10-9 up before Fola Adeleke sent Leopards into the first break ahead by one.

The other notable incident of the first period was a clearly injured Eames picking up three fouls in the space of two minutes, forcing him to sit on the bench until the second half.

Four Lukas Volskis points helped the visitors open a 17-12 lead after three second period minutes, and treys from Laws and Volskis saw them lead by 11 at the midway stage in the quarter.

However, the home side refused to give up, and a pair of three pointers from player-coach James Bamfield dragged them back into the game, and although Sam Salter replied with a long range effort of his own, a Mike Commane basket cut Leopards’ lead to 35-29 going into the locker room.

Greenan opened the second half with seven straight points as Leopards again opened a double digit lead.

A barrage of three-pointers, with Volskis, Matt Collins, Salter and Laws also scoring from the Land of Plenty, saw the Big Cats maintain that advantage as they reached the final break 61-51 ahead.

Salter opened the fourth period scoring, and five straight points from Adeleke looked to have put Leopards in a winning position, leading 68-53 with six minutes remaining.

However with Commane and Bamfield scoring freely on the way to 36 and 18 points respectively, that lead was cut to five points in the space of 90 seconds.

Scores from Adeleke and Greenan broke the run, but the Big Cats’ lead was trimmed to 71-69 going into the final two minutes.

Laws and Commane exchanged single free-throws in the penultimate minute, and Adeleke made it a three point game with a point from the free-throw line.

Fury were forced to foul to stop the clock after Commane missed a shot, and Collins wrapped up Leopards’ sixth win in nine league games from the line with four seconds remaining.

Leopards: L Greenan 20, G Laws 17, L Volskis 10, S Salter 9, F Adeleke 9, M Collins 5, M Eames 4, A Scotland-Williamson.