Bench strength has been the key to Great Britain’s wheelchair basketballers ending 28 years of hurt at the Paralympics. Six times in a row Terry Bywater and company fell in the final four at the Games, a miserable run stretching back to Sydney 2000.
“They all hurt,” said Bywater. “The quarter and the semi-final are the worst games you can play in. It’s heartbreaking.”
Holding a slender four-point advantage at the halfway stage of their semi-final against Germany at Paris 2024, nerves were creeping in and maybe even deja vu.
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about (semi-finals) and it was in the back of my mind,” said Pratt, who is one of over 1,000 elite athletes on UK Sport’s National Lottery-funded World Class Programme, allowing them to train full time, have access to the world’s best coaches and benefit from pioneering medical support – which has been vital on their pathway to the Paris 2024 Games.
“My first one was at Rio in 2016, we lost against Spain in the semi-final and we should have won that game. I was like, man, I don’t want that to happen again.”
GB’s Canadian coaches Billy and Joey Johnson brought Peter Cusack, a debutant unburdened by the yoke of history, into the game two minutes into the third quarter.
The 25-year-old brought a new level of physicality and intensity to the contest, particularly at the defensive end, and his introduction basically broke the back of the German challenge.
GB went on an 18-3 run to take total control and they eased over the line 71-43 to make the gold medal game for the first time since Atlanta 1996.
“Pete came into the game at a crucial moment, when we couldn’t get going,” said skipper Phil Pratt, “I don’t know if that would have happened in the past. The culture of this team has changed a lot.
“The faith we’ve got in our younger guys, the bench, the depth, we’ve got Terry Bywater who is one of the best scorers ever to play the game on our bench.
“Abdi Jama, if we need those guys to come in, they’ll do a job.”
Bywater, finally tasting semi-final victory at the seventh attempt, was only needed for four and a half minutes when the game was sewn up.
“We’re hard as nails and never give up, we showed that at half-time when it could easily have gone the other way,” said Bywater. “We stick together and with the bench we have, lads can score points quickly.
“That’s the kind of squad we have and it doesn’t reflect in the minutes played. If the coaches need me for 20 minutes, I’m ready.”
Despite being perennial bridesmaids at the Paralympics, the team have won a medal at every European Championships since 2002. GB have stepped up a gear since losing to the USA in the 2022 World Championship final by a single point.
Greater strength in depth has helped Britain break their semi-final hoodoo but they are built around three pillars of production.
Pratt is one of the best playmakers in the game and he dictates from the point, while 6ft4in Lee Manning is among the world’s biggest players and has a massive reach, enabling him to block a high volume of shots and dominate the defensive boards.
Chicago Bulls famously built their legend on the principle of ‘give the ball to Michael (Jordan) and get out of the way’ and the same can be said for ParalympicsGB and Gregg Warburton, who put up 35 points and took exactly half of all of his team’s shots.
They might not be able to be so reliant on Warburton for scoring in the final – likely against USA – but the Mancunian is one of the hottest hands in the tournament.
“First and foremost is I’m brave and I want the ball whenever the moment,” said Warburton. “It’s tough when you miss two or three in a row and their bench is shouting, the crowd’s going wild. It’s difficult, especially if you know you can make it and you’ve worked so hard.
“But the boys are right behind me, screaming, ‘keep taking them shots’ and that just spurs you on so much. That’s the way we want to keep playing.”
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