ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — St. John’s Edge coach Steve Marcus hasn’t even bothered to watch a lot of game tape of his team’s matchups against the Moncton Magic this season, which might seem a bit strange given those teams are squaring off for the National Basketball League of Canada’s championship starting tonight.
But as Marcus notes, what’s the point? The Edge and Magic teams taking the court tonight at Moncton’s Avenir Centre are different from the two squads which met each other five times during the regular season.
“Completely different, actually,” said Marcus. “There was no Murph (Murphy Burnatowski), no Olu (Ashaolu). Even (Jarryn) Skeete didn’t really play a lot against them. Carl was injured for half of them.”
The Edge and Magic meet in Game 1 of the best-of-seven league championship series 7:30 tonight (NL time). Game 2 is Saturday night in Moncton before the series shifts back to St. John’s and Mile One Centre for Games 3 and 4 next Monday and Thursday.
The plan now is for a 2-3-2 final — Moncton has home court advantage thanks to its league-best 27-13 regular-season record — although it could revert to a 2-2-1-1-1 format because of building conflicts in Moncton and St. John’s.
The Avenir Centre is not available after May 23 because of a professional bull riding show on the 25th.
But getting back to the series itself. The Edge registered only one win in five starts against Moncton, the last game coming in early February, a 109-102 Moncton win.
In that game, Obinna Oleka and Diego Kapelan started for St. John’s. Neither are with the team now. Junior Cadougan was a starting guard, but he’s done for the remainder of the season with an injury.
Brad States was also in the Edge lineup, and he’s no longer around.
Heck, even Doug Plumb was coaching St. John’s, before his abrupt resignation which led to the promotion of Marcus.
Since then, the Edge have added Burnatowski and Russell Byrd.
While the Magic topped their division this season, St. John’s was second in the Central Division at 21-19.
The Edge defeated the Sudbury Five in the opening round of the playoffs before getting past the KW Titans in six games in Round 2.
Moncton beat the Saint John Riptide in three straight games before needing seven games to beat the Halifax Hurricanes in the Atlantic Division final.
“We’ll have to continue to play our game, and that’s defend, and defend at a high level,” Marcus answered when asked what the Edge will have to do to get past the Magic. “The game plan is to stick to our defensive principals, the same principals which have gotten us to this point of the season.
“Our team defence is actually underrated. Yes, when you score 108 points (the Edge beat the Titans 108-100 in the final game of their series), that’s fantastic, but compare this to even two months ago, we were giving up 115 points.
“The guys have really bought in to what we’re preaching here in terms of good, solid defence.”
The Edge have been banged up in the playoffs, particularly Dez Lee, who has been hobbled by a leg injury. Lee missed Game 5 against the Titans before coming back to score 13 points and pull down 12 boards in Game 6,.
Ashaolu is playing with a damaged thumb, and English continues to play with an assortment of aches and pains.
Glen Davis has been driving the bus for St. John’s through the playoffs, with a team-high 19.9 points-per-game and 9.6 rebounds per game.
Rookie guard Trey Kell out of San Diego State leads the Magic with 22.8 points per game and 8.3 boards in the post season. Veteran Billy White is averaging 15.6 points per game.
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