Sheffield Sharks should have nothing to fear in British Basketball League play-offs, says RJ Eytle-Rock

The surging Sharks head into the final weekend of the regular season in fourth place but could end up as low as sixth come Sunday night.

They only have one game left – at home to bottom team Plymouth City Patriots on Saturday night – while Leicester Riders in fifth and Newcastle Eagles in sixth have a game extra to play and are two points (one win) behind.

All three could end up with a 19-17 (win-loss) record which would then bring head-to-head records into the reckoning. Leicester have the best of the three, Sheffield next and then Newcastle, meaning the Sharks would finish fifth and therefore face Leicester in the best-of-three play-off quarter-final, with Leicester having two games on their home floor.

Should Leicester slip up against either Manchester Giants on Friday night or Surrey Scorchers on Sunday - two teams who are below them in the standings - then Sharks with a win would take fourth and home-court advantage.

Sharks are significantly better playing at the Canon Medical Arena (12-5) than they are on the road (6-12), but Eytle-Rock - who has emerged as the season has gone on as one of head coach Atiba Lyons’ more dependable starters - believes that is irrelevant come the play-offs.

“I don’t think two away games would be anything to fear,” said the 25-year-old.

“Down the stretch we’ve shown we can win on the road, we just won twice at Manchester and also won up in Newcastle. It’s going to be hard regardless.

“Of course we’d like home court but if it comes down to it, we just have to be ready either way.”

Sharks maintained their momentum at the weekend with a win over third-placed Caledonia Gladiators on Friday, and even though they lost to second-placed Cheshire Phoenix on Sunday, it had more to do with the Phoenix’s unerring accuracy and devotion to three-point shooting than anything they did wrong offensively.

“We knew what to expect, Cheshire play a fast-pace game, they take a lot of threes, obviously they’ve got a lot of good shooters in there,” said Eytle-Rock who was part of the Great Britain squad for the first time last month.

“Our game plan was to slow them down but obviously they got through a few more times than we hoped.

“It was a tough loss, it was good to get the win on Friday but the Cheshire one hurts, definitely.

“I feel like we’re trending in the right direction, even though we fell short Sunday.

“We’ve got one more game in the regular season and then it’s the play-offs.

“We’ve got a week now to fix the things we didn’t do right against Cheshire, and then hopefully on Saturday we can get the job done.”

Meanwhile in the English National League Division 1 play-offs, Bradford Dragons pulled off a major upset when they defeated Essex Rebels 87-79 on Saturday.

Bradford were the seventh seed going into the one-off play-off game at the home of the second seed, but now advance to the semi-finals where they travel to face Hemel Storm on Saturday night.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​