Long-serving Mike Brown looked forward to his first Brighton Bears play-off and warned: "We can't afford a slow start this time."

Bears have been dubbed the comeback kings after a series of dramatic recoveries this season.

They finished the league campaign with wins over Milton Keynes, Chester and Birmingham, which saw them overturn deficits of 14, 15 and 14 points respectively.

It makes for spectacular viewing but, ahead of their quarter-final with either Leopards or Newcastle, Brown admitted his team must be on guard from the first tip-off.

He said: "We have been playing good basketball. We tend to start off slow and we turn it around but, in championship time, we're going to need to play 40 minutes as a unit. That's the good thing about this team. We have a cohesive unit and everybody knows that."

The BBL's play-off system has been widely criticised and life is being made as hard as possible for Bears fans, whose team must wait until 6pm on Sunday to take to the floor at the Coventry Skydome.

Despite that, they expect to be roared on by a decent-sized support.

Bears go into the knockout stages fresh from five successive wins which took them desperately close to the southern conference title.

Brown said: "I don't think we are too disappointed to miss the title. Our main goal now is our next game and we will go from that.

"There were a number of games where we shot ourselves in the foot but we are still in a position to do the whole thing, which is win the championship. We are really not looking backwards, just looking forward."

Bears will know who they face in the quarters at around 5pm tomorrow, when Leopards and Newcastle finish their first round clash.

Newcastle will be favourites for that tie. Either way, Bears will have a score to settle. Their only home defeats since the turn of the year came against Newcastle and Leopards and proved costly in the title race.

Randy Duck (ankle) and Albert White (wrist) are expected to play despite niggling injuries.

WORTHING Thunder can close in on a top four spot in the NBL by beating a strong Plymouth side at Durrington tomorrow (8pm).

The visitors are on course to finish second but cannot catch leaders Teesside.