Veolia Towers Hamburg stunned the London Lions 81-83 at Copperbox Arena on Wednesday led by a trio of players with experience in British basketball.
Hamburg stars win in return to London
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Mark Hughes, V.J. King and Aljami Durhan all played in the British League at some point during their careers. Hughes made his professional debut with the Worcester Wolves in the 2019-20 season. Durham joined Hamburg from another British team, the Caledonia Gladiators, where he played last season. King was the British League's player of the month in January 2023 when he played for the Bristol Flyers.
All of them had very significant performances in their returns to London on Wednesday. Durham produced an all-around game with 15 points, 5 rebounds, a EuroCup career-high 7 assists and a PIR of 20. At the end of the game, Durham thought it was a first step in the right direction for a team that entered the game with a 1-9 record in Group A.
"I have to give all the credit to my teammates and coaches. They make it easy for me when I am hitting shots, and we were running our actions to perfection. You see how good we can be! It is just how much better we can get, honestly," Durham said.
"It is a testament to our season. We had a tough start but kept working and kept getting better every day and now, we were able to put together 40 minutes. And as you can see, we can play with these guys, we can play with the tough ones. It is just a good testament to our work but we are not done here. We have a lot more."
King stepped up in crunch time after being relatively quiet in the opening 37 minutes. London led 78-75 with less than 3 minutes left after rallying from a 16-point deficit but King tied the game with a three-pointer and bettered Olaseni's layup with another bomb from downtown for an 80-81 edge in the next-to-last minute. King had 6 of his 8 points in the final 3 minutes. He also collected 5 rebounds.
Hughes buried the game-winning shot, getting a defensive rebound after Tarik Phillip's miss and running the length of the court to bank in a stop-and-pop jumper. When London could not get a shot up in the final 1.3 seconds, Hughes had effectively won the game for Hamburg. He finished the game with 12 points, 2 assists and a PIR of 10.
All three Hamburg stars had solid games in their returns to London and helped Hamburg to record a character road victory!