HEAD coach Paul James has urged his players to show “more composure” in the dying moments of matches as Worcester Wolves bid to turn near-misses into victories.

Wolves held a 14-point lead after an impressive first quarter against Plymouth Raiders last Friday and were leading 79-75 going into the final two minutes.

But James admitted his team allowed the British Basketball League clash to become a “mess down the stretch” as Raiders snatched an 87-84 victory.

“It was very frustrating as I actually felt we played really well for about 35 minutes of the game,” said James whose seventh-placed side have lost 10 out of 15 league games.

“We built up a lead and were seven points up going into the fourth quarter but in the last two-and-a-half minutes we went away from the things that were going for us.

“We stopped putting the ball inside, made sloppy turnovers, lost a bit of focus in running the offence and allowed them to get back into the game.”

Wolves had an opportunity to force the match into overtime when point guard Marek Klassen advanced the ball.

But after throwing a frantic pass forward Maurice Walker was left with a long-distance effort that fell short of the basket.

“We didn’t execute the plays, get the right person to get the shot and it became a bit of a mess down the stretch,” James said.

“In the last few games we have put ourselves in positions to win and have not closed those matches out.

“We are certainly going to have to revisit how we close out games so we can at least get the shots we want at the end of the match.

“If we get those shots and fail then fair enough but the fact we had three or four plays consecutively where we didn’t even get a shot away was not satisfactory.”

Despite the loss, James felt there were “a lot of positives” to build on ahead of tomorrow’s BBL Trophy first-round tie against Sheffield Sharks at the University of Worcester Arena (7.30pm).

“If we can put a 40-minute spell together we can challenge anybody in the league,” he added.

“But we certainly need to show a bit more composure down the stretch.

“It’s almost like we are so eager to win a game that we kind of go away from what gave us the lead.

“Having said that, I saw a lot of positives from the Plymouth game as we were defensively very solid and got some blocks when we needed to.

“We did some good things as a unit defensively to create scoring opportunities. But we then just failed to execute down the other end when we needed to most.”