Basketball: Leopards show claws as Eagles have wings clipped

London Leopards leapt to fourth place in the British Basketball League Championship's Southern Conference with a 97-89 win at Newcastle last night, Jason Kimbrough leading their scorers with 22 points.

The Leopards trailed 71-69 at the start of the third, but a 6-0 spurt with little over one minute to go put the Brentwood-based club 91-82 ahead and made the game safe. Rod Brown with 18 points, and Rico Alderson with 17 backed Kimbrough.

The Eagles stay in fourth place in the Northern Conference ahead of Edinburgh Rocks and Derby Storm and on course for a place in the play-off quarter-finals. But in the highly-competitive South, all six clubs have a chance of qualification.

It is a measure of the expectation heaped on London Towers that if they win both games this weekend they will top the BBL Championship's Southern Conference, even though the first half of their season has largely been written off as a failure.

Towers need to beat both teams above them, leaders Thames Valley Tigers at Crystal Palace tonight (6pm) and the third-placed Bears at the Brighton Centre tomorrow (5pm).

But two wins will allow recently-appointed coach David Lindstrom to put behind him the mainly inherited failure of nine straight defeats in the Euroleague, which cost Lino Frattin his job and has put Towers into the North European League for the second half of the season.

Tigers lost momentum with a 96-83 defeat on Thursday at Birmingham Bullets, who will catch Towers and overhaul every other team in the Conference if they win their games in hand. Bullets play Milton Keynes Lions tonight (7pm). Tigers have already beaten Towers this season and coach Paul James said: "Towers are having a horrendous season in Europe and by their standards are struggling in the BBL.

"But I am sure they will turn things around. For sure, whichever team wins the conference will have earned it." Nick Nurse, Frattin's predecessor in paying the price for Towers' expectations, has transformed Brighton into title contenders this season but is still looking for a first victory over his former club.

* Michael Jordan endured his worst scoring performance as Washington Wizards lost 108-81 to Indiana Pacers. Jordan, who scored only six points, had scored at least 10 in 866 consecutive games since his previous low of eight against Cleveland in 1986.