HEAD coach Paul James believes his injury-hit Worcester Wolves side face a battle to keep their title hopes alive after second-placed Leicester Riders inflicted another blow.

The Riders backed up their 88-54 victory over Wolves earlier this season with an equally impressive 83-65 win at the University of Worcester Arena.

The result sees Leicester, who have three games in hand on their rivals, close the gap on Newcastle Eagles while Worcester remain 10 points adrift of the leaders in third.

James, who was without the injured Perris Blackwell and Ben Eaves, admitted his side are now struggling to stay in contention for British Basketball League’s top spot.

“We are a long way back now,” said James, whose side host Surrey Scorchers on Friday (7.30pm).

“But when you look at Leicester they have continuity throughout their team as they have only made a couple of changes this season, so they have moved on from where they were last year.

“We are an evolving team and it is going to take a while for us to get to where we want to be.”

Wolves were 39-36 behind at half-time in Friday’s match and faced a seven-point deficit at the end of the third quarter against a Leicester side who have lost just once all season. However, James said the absence of Blackwell and Eaves, who both suffered injury setbacks in the week leading up to the match, ultimately cost them victory.

“It was one of those matches where even if we had a fully-fit team it was always going to be tough,” he admitted.

“But when you have got Perris and Ben both out that’s 30-odd points plus 25 rebounds we have had to go and find from somewhere and unfortunately we weren’t able to do that, so that hurt us.

“I thought the game-plan worked for three quarters as we stayed with Leicester, but in the fourth quarter we just lost our shape a bit.

“We did not execute our offence the way I wanted us to at the beginning of the fourth quarter and in defence I think we became a little bit too passive and a little soft.

“We didn’t really chase them down like we had done in the first three quarters.”

Jay Couisnard finished with a match-high 26 points, while Javier Mugica and Ashton Khan also got into double figures.

But it was the debut of new signing Orlan Jackman which drew most of the home fans’ attention.

James added: “For 40 minutes he played with a lot of energy and we saw glimpses of what he can do, so the best is yet to come from him.”