Brighton Bears paid dearly for a slow start as champions-elect Giants took the spoils 89-77.

Bears gave a boisterous Burgess Hill full house hope when they reduced the

deficit against the northern conference leaders to six points with nearly two miuntes remaining at the Triangle on Saturday. But Giants, as they had done throughout, simply raised their game a notch and cruised to their 22nd league win of the season.

When these sides met three weeks agoBears were blown away by 37 points so to only go down by 12 at least shows that Dunning is slowly but surely bringing about an improvement in their fortunes.

Two successive wins over Edinburgh Rocks and London Towers had even left Bears' fans harbouring thoughts of a late run for the play-offs, but that looks unlikely now after a defeat that left them eight points adrift of the fourth play-off spot with ten games to go.

Bears outscored Giants 29-24 in a frantic fourth quarter, but the damage had been done earlier in the contest as Giants hustled their opponents into errors to build up a commanding lead.

Dunning said: "I felt we didn't come out with the energy we had shown in the last two games and that cost us. We put ourselves in a hole and it's tough to dig yourself out of it, especially against a side like Manchester. It's just a feature of this club. We struggle to maintain the level of intensity in a game over a required period of time. But in the final quarter we started doing the things we had been doing recently and that is something positive to take out of the game. It pleased me when we got it to under ten points, but Jon Gaines got called for a travelling foul and the momentum we had was lost."

Over two minutes had elapsed before Gaines got Bears on the scoreboard, but the home side levelled the contest at 16-16 before Giants established a 26-22 lead after the first period.

Mike Finger called a time out early in the second after a rejection and basket by Charles Claxton had tied the scores and a wake-up call from their coach seemed to do the trick. Giants suddenly upped the tempo to embark on a 14-2 run which Bears could do little to stop.

They outscored Bears 19-11 in the second quarter and had stretched their lead to 18 midway through the third as Tony Dorsey, Phil Handy and Roy Hairston simply outmuscled Bears' defence. At that stage it looked as if Giants were heading for a huge win, but Jan Trojanowski and Michael Brown stepped up for Bears and in the final quarter the home side slowly whittled away at the deficit.

Man of the match Lormont Sharp had the crowd on their feet as he sunk three from outside the D as a 24-13 run took Bears to within six just after

Giants' England international Danny Craven had been fouled out. But as Bears ran into foul trouble of their own, Dorsey, Handy and Travis Conlon wrapped up victory from the free throw line to condemn Bears to their first defeat in five matches at their second home this season.

Losing to as good a team as Giants was no disgrace and Dunning was more

upset that it is now another ten days before Bears meet London Leopards in a game they simply must win to keep those slender play-off hopes alive.

"That hurts," he admitted. "Any momentum we have picked up in the last week is now going to go by not playing for ten days. We have some scrimmage games lined up and a possible friendly against the Army next Saturday, but it's not the same as regular competition. As for the play-offs, who knows. If we can win another four or five games we're in there but it's going to be tough."

SCORERS

Bears - Sharp 19, Claxton 18, Trojanowski 12, Brown 11, Gaines 8,

Scantlebury 6, Brame 2, Newman 2.

Giants - Dorsey 27, Hairston 21, Conlan 17, Handy 14, Baker 5, Holley 3,

Craven 2.

Birmingham Bullets' captain Nigel Lloyd has been given eight disciplinary points after video evidence showed him punching Bears' guard Michael Brown when the sides met at Burgess Hill last month.

Lloyd is just two points away from a mandatory one-match ban and Bullets are considering an appeal because they consider the video evidence inconclusive.

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