Nick Nurse has admitted his Brighton Bears are being punished for temporary lapses in their European basketball campaign.

Bears went down 87-76 to Ionikos in Athens last night, having led by as many as seven points in their ULEB Cup game.

They were 43-38 up at the halfway stage but leaked 11 unanswered points to open the second half and were never again on terms.

Bears coach and owner Nurse, who is ambitious to take on teams from Europe's big leagues, said: "There's no time in the 40 minutes of European basketball to not play near your best. As soon as you do, you get punished severely.

"In the British League, you might make mistakes and not pay for them.

"Here, you get hit, and not by one basket. You get hit by maybe eight or ten points."

Bears now face tough home games with Lietuvos Rytas of Lithuania and Polish outfit Sopot, who last night beat Split 84-65 and Cholet 86-65 respectively.

Nurse's men also go to champions Sheffield in the league on Saturday.

Yorick Williams, arguably their best player last night, insisted: "We had mental lapses, we talked about them as a team and we won't be making them again."

Centre Dave Morgan made his debut and Croatian forward Niki Pecarevic got his first 15 seconds of court time for the club.