Tigers 101, Bears 105: Brighton Bears continued their fine start to the season, winning a dramatic victory over old rivals Thames Valley Tigers.

Bears proved too good for Tigers for the second time in less than a fortnight having opened their Championship challenge with an 88-63 win over them at the Brighton Centre.

Nick Nurse's men were made to work tremendously hard in the BBL Trophy clash at Bracknell Sports Centre before gaining their fourth straight win.

A National Cup quarter-final clash at home to Newcastle Eagles next month has already been secured together with a couple of Championship victories, so Bears will look forward to their Trophy showdown with London Towers at the weekend in confident mood.

Bears, who now boast five successive victories over Tigers, fought back tenaciously after being 22 points behind at 68-46 at the interval.

They roared back to tie the scores inside the first five minutes of the third quarter and, inspired by Sterling Davis and Randy Duck, they entered the last ten minutes only two points down at 86-84.

Bears held a slender advantage for most of the final quarter and, after a three-point attempt which would have tied the game was missed by the hosts, Ralph Blalock sealed victory by making one of two free throws.

Brighton suffered an injury blow right at the death when guard Michael Brown strained a calf muscle taking the final defensive rebound, and he could be a doubt this weekend.

Tigers hit Bears with a brilliant display of outside shooting in the first half, and point guard Michael Nurse nailed five three-pointers in the second quarter after Barry Bowman had put away four in the first.

Bears did a fine job shutting Nurse and Bowman down in the remainder of the game and Nurse added only one more point to finish with 22 while Bowman picked up two more for a tally of 23.

Tigers, who recorded two superb away wins at Towers and Chester last weekend, led 26-23 after the first quarter in what Bears assistant coach Steve Swanson described as an "unbelievable game".

Davis hit a game-high 30 points and Duck 27 and Swanson said: "To come back as strongly as we did in the third quarter set us up to win the game and it was a great victory."

Bears scorers: Davis 30, Duyck 27, Alderson 18, Brown 10, Blalock 8, Johnson 8, Etete 4.