Nick Nurse today revealed how he shielded his Genesis Brighton Bears from pre-game jitters on Durrington derby day.

Bears got their their BBL Trophy campaign off to a winning start by pulling away in the last 12 minutes of Saturday's group opener at Worthing Thunder.

After a frenetic first half in which Barker (Tarring) Thunder led by two points on four separate occasions, Bears overpowered their hosts, despite losing the man who had seemed most likely to perform such a feat, Andrew Alleyne, to foul trouble.

The late avalanche of points disguised a generally close battle in which the lower-league hosts trailed just 63-60 late in the third period.

By then, if players had any initial doubts what this first-ever competitive tussle between the two clubs meant, they had been dispelled by the atmosphere generated by a near sell-out 800 crowd.

The spectacle of just about everyone in the place on their feet shouting themselves hoarse at the tip-off brought back memories of the great Worthing Bears days.

Nurse admitted: "I made sure I didn't make a big deal out of this game.

"I wanted to protect my players from that.

"The truth is, though, it was a big deal and was a good game for us at this stage to learn about ourselves and to get the win.

"It was good for both sets of fans and Worthing played great which helped the game along.

"They brought everything they had and I'm impressed by them.

"But we kept switching defences and eventually we found one that worked."

Steve Gayle was a constant menace for Thunder and Nick Oharabe enjoyed some good moments at the basket but Bears had the outstanding player on view in Terrance McGee.

The Bears point guard exuded authority and bounced back from last week's 0-for-11 nightmare at Leicester with some high percentage shooting when his team really needed it.

He said: "We treated this like any BBL game.

"The pressure they applied on us was like playing a BBL team so it was a good game for us to get our rhythm.

"We're still getting to know each other. We've got to come together to play team ball no matter who scores what and who does what."

Thunder went ahead for the last time a minute from half-time when James Brame's shot dropped in off the rim to bring the house down.

Then McGee took over. He ran down the clock to level the scores on the buzzer and was the architect behind a 7-2 opening to the third period.

The balance really tipped in Brighton's favour, though, either side of the final break when they scored 21 of 27 points.

Steve Parillon opened the fourth quarter with a soul-destroying and-one, forcing Jon Woods' fourth foul in the process, after McGee had driven the basket.

And the exclamation mark was added by Damaija's Stewart ferocious dunk on the buzzer which left the basket hanging from its hinge.

By then, Thunder's resilience had been well and truly eroded and their coach Gary Smith was bitterly disappointed by the late flood of points.

He said: "I take no positives from that game.

"We could have done better defensively.

"Brighton are a decent enough team but we crumbled. We didn't do what we had to do.

"We worked on our offence and sharing the ball but we didn't do any of those things."