Brighton Bears' coach Mark Dunning believes his side can topple high-flying London Towers tonight.

The game at the Brighton centre looks a tall order against a Towers' side with a four-point lead at the top of the southern conference and two wins against Bears already under their belts.

But Bears' confidence has been restored following Sunday's encouraging success over Edinburgh Rocks, only their second in 13 games. And Dunning says there is no reason why they can't make home court advantage count against a Towers team who will be without guard Bryan Balser who has had an emergency appendix operation.

"When we played them at home in December we lost to them by four points and should have won, they are a side we can do well against," he said. In particular, Dunning will be instructing his men to keep a tight reign on Danny Lewis and England international Steve Bucknall.

Lewis is averaging over 21 points this season and Bucknell 17 and both men played key roles in Towers' previous victories over their hosts. Dunning was delighted with his side's improved defensive display against Rocks and the fact that they kept going for the whole game.

But he admits their offensive play will have to improve if they are to maintain realistic play-off ambitions. "On Sunday we played a 40-minute game and defensively we are getting close to where I want us to be. If you only concede 66 points in a game you give yourself a chance" he said. But offensively we were not good. We shot something like 41 per cent from the floor and were out-rebounded. That is an area we have been working on at training this week."

It doesn't get any easier for Bears with northern conference leaders Manchester Giants travelling to Sussex on Saturday. "I will admit that we will find it hard to match up against Manchester but Towers are definitely beatable. We can break them down and should have beaten them at home a couple of months ago, but we must bring the right attitude to the court which we did against Edinburgh."

Tip off for what is always an attractive fixture is 7pm and tickets are on sale at the Centre box office.

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