WORCESTER Wolves director of basketball Paul James reckons the eventual British Basketball League champions could afford to lose up to eight games this season.

Wolves are second in the table behind Newcastle Eagles after last Sunday’s 99-96 overtime defeat at Glasgow Rocks.

It was their second loss of the campaign — the other coming against Manchester Giants — and left them two points adrift of the Eagles but with both having played 11 matches before this weekend.

While defeat in Glasgow left them chasing Newcastle, who Worcester defeated on the opening day of the season, James is not overly concerned.

The Wolves chief, who takes his side to Plymouth Raiders tomorrow (4pm), said: “The advantage has been lost but there’s still plenty of games to go with lots of twists and turns.

“Whoever wins the league is probably going to lose six, seven or maybe even eight games.

“We are not at panic stations and we are still right in there fighting.”

Raiders are 10th in the table but were 91-90 winners over Sheffield Sharks last time out for their first victory since October.

“Although they haven’t been picking up the wins, the Raiders have been more competitive in the last few games,” James said.

“It’s always tough to go there, they get a good crowd that get behind them and can make it quite an intimidating atmosphere.

“I feel if we can play like we did against Glasgow but finish the job properly it will be a good game for us. We need to give it everything we have and it’s a game we need to win.”

James expects to have everybody fit despite admitting a few of his players were “a little bit beaten up” after the defeat at Glasgow and last Friday’s 79-65 league victory over Bristol Flyers.

“It was a match that was there for the taking and we didn’t make the most of our opportunity,” the Wolves boss said.

“All the time you don’t put teams away, you are giving them an opportunity to get back into the game.

“We shouldn’t have been in a situation where we had a shot to win it.”

James is also still in the market for a power forward to replace Lithuanian centre Donatas Visockis, who left the club by mutual consent last month.

James added: “There are some options out there that we’ve looked at, some of them haven’t been suitable so we haven’t been able to bring anybody in yet, but the search is on.

“The sooner we can do it the better but we have to make sure we bring in the right player who’s going to help the team.”