Game Preview - August 6: BlackJacks Fight for Playoff Seeding Against Alliance
The Ottawa BlackJacks of the Canadian Elite Basketball League (CEBL) face off against the Montreal Alliance at Verdun Auditorium tonight at 7:30 p.m.
Both teams enter this game coming off of a loss to the Calgary Surge, and both have gone 2-3 in their last five games.
While the Alliance played the Surge just two days ago, the BlackJacks have had a much needed two days off after playing them on Saturday afternoon.
Finishing a stretch of playing six games in thirteen days, Ottawa was bound to be tired. With this time to recover their bodies, they should have the advantage in energy tonight over Montreal.
“These are the dog days,” noted BlackJacks Head Coach David DeAveiro, “everyone’s tired, their bodies are sore, so just making sure that guys are healthy and have energy to play in these games is really important–thus the two days off.”
That rest becomes extra crucial considering this game’s impact on playoff standings–these teams rank number three and four in the Eastern Conference with three games left to go in their regular seasons.
The BlackJacks sit in third with a record of 10-11 and the Alliance two games behind in fourth at 8-13.
The BlackJacks will move up in the standings with a win tonight, surpassing the 11-11 Scarborough Shooting Stars for second place in the Eastern Conference. Because Ottawa holds the tiebreaker over Scarborough (due to the BlackJacks winning the season series), if their records end up tied at the end of the season, they’ll take second place.
That second place spot is crucial in the CEBL’s playoff format–which gifts two bye rounds to the first seed, one bye round to the second seed, and home-court advantage in round one to the third seed. This complicated process makes for a competitive end-of-season stretch, where every spot in the standings matters.
As the BlackJacks push for the second seed with a win, the Alliance will also be pushing to win and potentially surpass them for the third seed.
These two teams play back-to-back games against each other, one in Montreal tonight and one at The Arena at TD Place in Ottawa on Friday. Because the Alliance are only two games behind in the standings, they could theoretically surpass the BlackJacks with two straight wins.
So, with playoff standings important as ever, this game is a must-win for both teams.
With each squad fighting hard, tonight’s matchup will be a tough one to predict. Looking at their earlier games this season, each team has shown the ability to dominate the other.
Back in late June, Ottawa and Montreal played each other for the first official time in the season (an outdoor game in May was declared a no contest), the BlackJacks dominated the matchup, winning 90-77.
When the two teams met again on July 23, though, the script was flipped. The Alliance held a lead for the entirety of the fourth quarter and target time taking an 87-79 win.
Coming into tonight’s matchup, Ottawa is focusing on fixing some of their key issues from that game.
“We turned the ball over, and they scored a lot of points off of our turnovers.” said DeAveiro. The Alliance outscored the BlackJacks 24-18 in points off turnovers during the matchup, a difference that would have brought the game within two if nullified.
Ottawa loves to pass as a team, ranking second in the CEBL in assists with 21.7 per-game. The unfortunate side of those high assist numbers is that, when faced with a good defense, they can lead to a high number of turnovers.
Montreal’s defense, although middle of the pack statistically, was able to force Ottawa into 16 turnovers on the night, over two more than their season average. Although these little differences don’t seem to move the needle much at first glance, they add up over a game and greatly impact its result.
Another thing that the BlackJacks have been focusing on is rebounding the ball.
Despite ranking high in many of the league’s important statistics, the team has quite the weakness for crashing the glass. They rank second-last in rebounds per-game (38.0), and third-last in offensive rebounds per-game (10.3).
The last time they played the Alliance, the BlackJacks were outrebounded 48-37 and were eclipsed14-6 in offensive rebounds.
“Our Achilles’ heel–offensive rebounding,” said DeAveiro, “[The Alliance] are one of the best offensive rebounding teams in this league, and so we’ve got to take away some of the things they like to do the most.”
Montreal leads the CEBL in offensive rebounding averaging 12.4 per-game.
“They do a good job of attacking the glass, so I think we’ve just got to do the little stuff–like everybody blocking out,” said BlackJacks forward Deng Adel, “Making sure we secure the rebound, and then once we do that, we’ll be good on the offensive end. Just slowing them down in transition and not turning the ball over.”
“Our focus has been on those two things. Really taking care of the ball, and making sure that we don’t give them second opportunities.” added DeAveiro.
With those two changes in mind, Ottawa looks to head into this back-to-back stretch against Montreal with confidence and improve their record to 12-11. The feat would be the first time the team would have a record over .500 all season.
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