Brighton Bears' prize fighters staged the comeback of the season to grab two potentially priceless Championship points off rivals Milton Keynes Lions last night.

Nick Nurse's men, on the ropes at 78-61 down with six- and-a half minutes remaining, hit 18 unanswered points to clinch an amazing victory and bring the Triangle crowd to their feet.

It was a dream finale to what for the most part had been a nightmare evening for the play-off hopefuls.

They were outplayed for three-quarters of the contest, with veteran guard Nigel Lloyd controlling operations for the visitors.

He guided them to leads of 42-29 at half-time and 67-53 at the three-quarter mark.

Bears also picked up four of six bewildering technical fouls handed out on an evening when it appeared controversial calls and Brighton's failure to nail shots from outside would be the main talking points.

Then came that unexpected final twist to the script.

Coach Nurse has seen more basketball games than he would care to remember down the years but even he admitted: "I have never known anything like that.

"We were outplayed and still won. It felt like one of those Rocky movies where he takes 1,000 punches and in the 15th round he knocks the other guy out.

"We were getting destroyed but we refused to go down. We made a couple of small switches in the fourth quarter and we got it under ten. Once we did that you could see our guys knew they had a chance."

Even during their dramatic comeback, Bears were well below their best offensively. Instead the win was down to gritty defence and sheer willpower.

Wilbur Johnson set the 18-0 run rolling, although he fouled out soon after to further stack the odds against Nurse's men.

They managed to claw back arrears to 78-71 with 2min.20sec to go, at which point Jason Siemon, a crucial factor off the boards for Lions, picked up his fifth foul. Randy Duck started driving his way to the basket and forcing fouls, though he missed two of four resulting free throws.

Errol Seaman coolly hit two of two from the line and forced Andrew Alleyne out of bounds for a key turnover.

Sterling Davis grabbed the rebound from his initial miss and scored to make it a three-point margin, then Albert White's drive and lay-up set the scene for the final drama.

Davis, named BBL player-of-the-month on Friday, rounded off quite a weekend when he went to the line amid high tension and sank both shots to put Bears in front with 50 seconds to go.

There was still time for Lions to have two possessions but their hosts defended tigerishly and, when Alleyne's last shot missed two seconds from the end, Davis was there to grab the loose ball and complete the fairytale.

Bears scorers: White 27, Duck 19, Davis 16, Seaman 8, Johnson 6, Brown 2, Jackson 1.

Lions scorers: Payne 18, Lloyd 17, Kirk 17, Siemon 13, Alleyne 10, Noel 3.

Bears rubber-stamped their qualification to the Trophy quarter finals with a comfortable 101-83 win at Leicester on Saturday.

Bears scorers: Duck 29, Brown 21, Davis 17, White 10, Seaman 7, Jackson 7, Johnson 6, Turner 2, Wright 2.

Gary Smith told his Worthing Thunder players to savour the prospect of an NBL Trophy final appearance after they shot down Plymouth on Saturday.

Thunder beat their arch rivals 109-103 in a thrilling semi-final at the Leisure Centre.

Victory over Teesside at Sheffield on January 13 will give Worthing the first trophy of their short history.

Player-coach Smith said: "These guys have got to enjoy this win. Some of them have never been to a final before and this is their chance.

"We didn't play out of our skins. We can play a lot better but we still came out winners."

Thunders Scorers: Mundy-Castle 37, Hampton 28, Moore 20, Martin 13, Addy 8, Vingoe 2, Brame 1.

Brian Owen brian.owen @theargus.co.uk