LEICESTER Riders’ 78-73 home defeat to London Lions proves that nobody can afford to switch off in the race for the British Basketball League title.

It’s a sign of how strong this league is and the fact you can’t have an off night - if you do you can get beaten.

That result is also a real wake-up call for us. We’ve got ourselves in a great position now to do something really special and we need to stay focused and keep working hard for each other.

There’s still plenty of mileage left in this season. Looking at our schedule over the next six weeks, we’ve got some very tough games both home and away, as has everybody else.

Leicester play Newcastle Eagles next weekend so there are some interesting fixtures coming up in the near future. By the end of February we will know where everybody stands.

As well as the leading sides, teams like Cheshire Phoenix, who we host tomorrow night (7.30pm) at the University Arena, and Plymouth Raiders are not out of it. I just don’t think anybody can afford to relax right now.

It’s a matter of trying to win your home games and trying to pick one or two off on the road.

Not having played since the 90-66 victory over Durham Wildcats has been frustrating because I think we’re at our best when we are playing and working towards the next match.

But it has given us a chance to rest some niggles and we have still trained exceptionally hard to make sure we stay on top of our fitness.

It’s exciting to be at home for the Cheshire match following our mini break. We’ve got some very exciting players on our team but so have Cheshire.

They’ve got a high-scoring guard in Reggie Middleton so it is going to be an interesting match-up between him and Zaire Taylor.

They’ve also got a couple of really good big men so Will Creekmore, Stefan Djukic and Andreas Schreiber are going to have their work cut out as well.

I think there are going to be some great match-ups all over the court against Cheshire but the difference could be how our players from the bench contribute towards the game.

Jamal Williams is back and looking really good in practice so I’m expecting him to come in and do a good defensive job.

Kai Williams is performing and Stefan is looking better again. Along with players like Daniel Belgrave, they’ve all got a job to do and they can all contribute, whether it’s defensively or making the odd three-pointer here and there.