Rested Sea Bears ready for post-season press

Isiah Osborne acknowledged that the effort — and the results — have been disappointing at times recently.

He also knows it’s not too late to change that.

The Winnipeg Sea Bears were afforded some time this week to reflect on the recent shortcomings as a group. With six days separating the last game and the next game, members of the club took a couple of days away from basketball before returning to the court for their last full week of practice, which was appreciated for a tired group that finished its busiest stretch of the Canadian Elite Basketball League campaign last weekend.

“We think we’re the best team in the league, obviously,” said Osborne. “A couple bad games, but that’s just off some mistakes. On some plays, if we’re not on that 100 per cent effort, little things happen, and we’ve lost a couple games by two, by four, and that happens. Just a couple mishaps on defence, stuff like that, and I mean, you just gotta lock in on those.”

The Sea Bears are currently sliding on the team’s first two-game losing streak of the season and have lost four of their last six games.

Head coach Mike Raimbault said after reviewing the tape, it was clear that his group was playing fatigued — that a stretch of six games in 14 days had caught up to them.

Now with a full week off, however, the group is adamant that it is rested and refocused for the closing stretch of the season.

Moreover, despite their recent stretch of play, there is still belief internally that the Sea Bears are trending in the right direction.

“Honestly, the way that the schedule is working out for us is exactly what we need in terms of trying to ready ourselves for post-season play,” said Raimbault.

“The single-game elimination is pressure-packed, and there are no guarantees in any of those things, but what we really have got the last couple of games, and our final two here, is a level of desperation that really correlates to what we should expect in the post-season.”

Another test awaits Friday in the Sea Bears’ (13-9) regular-season home finale against the Ottawa BlackJacks (9-13) at Canada Life Centre (7 p.m.).

Here are three pointers to know ahead of Friday’s contest in the latest edition of Beyond the Arc.

What’s at stake

The Sea Bears’ hopes of clinching home court advantage throughout the Western Conference playoffs were on life support after suffering consecutive losses last week, but the club received a lifeline earlier this week when the Montreal Alliance defeated the Vancouver Bandits.

That has set up a winner-take-all between Winnipeg and Vancouver for the right to stay home throughout the first two rounds of the playoffs in Sunday’s regular-season finale in Langley, B.C., regardless of the outcome on Friday. The Sea Bears will still want to put forth a strong showing, however, as they effectively prepare for a playoff game this weekend.

For Ottawa, it’s much messier, but it boils down to this: a win keeps their playoff hopes alive, while a loss would put those hopes in peril.

The CEBL’s tie-breaker rules could be exercised in the Eastern Conference. Beyond the leading Scarborough Shooting Stars — who have already clinched home court advantage throughout the playoffs — the remaining four teams are all within 1.5 games of each other.

To put this in perspective, there is still a world in which the BlackJacks, who enter Friday night outside of the playoff picture, climb to the No. 2 seed and host a playoff game next week.

Would be Smart to stop

The last time these two sides met was all the way back on June 4 in Ottawa, where the Sea Bears rolled to a 117-88 victory in what has proved to be one of Winnipeg’s best shooting performances of the season.

That night, BlackJacks guard Matthew Cleveland was one of the few bright spots on the court for the hosts, leading his club with a 27-point performance.

While Cleveland will be key to defend on Friday, the most dangerous BlackJack as of late has been his running mate Javonte Smart.

Smart, who is in his second summer in the CEBL, has scored the second-most points (476) and assists (135) in the CEBL this season and is the engine of Ottawa’s offence.

Sea Bears forward D.J. Burns is very familiar with Smart, dating back to their childhood in Louisiana. Burns grew up in New Orleans, while Smart was raised about an hour southeast in Baton Rouge.

“I definitely know his history. He’s a legend where he comes from, and so am I in my respected area,” said Burns. “It’ll be a great battle, and I think our guards are going to do a good job on just containing him.”

It won’t be as easy as simply talking about it. The 6-3 guard is coming in with a pile of momentum, averaging 27.8 points across his last five contests, while firing 53.7 per cent from the field and making half of his shots from deep range during that stretch.

“He’s a great basketball player and a great three-point shooter,” Burns added. “I think we’re going to do a good job on the scout, and just in total of just being the whole team that we need to be — not just for this game, but going into the playoffs.”

Haven’t fully landed

Xavier Moon has done exactly what the Sea Bears hoped he would do for the group, but Raimbault maintains there is still an element of feeling out that has yet to run its course.

“Our process of trying to figure out our spots where the ball needs to move and when it needs to move, and he’s a great player, but I don’t think you just step in and build chemistry with an entirely new group without playing some games,” he said.

“So we feel like all of these games leading up to post-season are pivotal for us and continue to have opportunity for us to grow.”

Moon has displayed every facet of his game through three contests, dishing out 14 assists in his season debut, stepping up defensively to the tune of nine steals combined and answering the bell offensively when his team needs it most — pouring in 28 points in the Sea Bears’ most recent outing.

Raimbault said there is still more he’d like to do on the offensive end to leverage Moon’s skill set, but that he needs to see more cohesion on the floor first.

“I think chemistry comes first. Obviously there’s spots on the floor that he’s able to get to and be successful that maybe weren’t the same for previous guys, but we have to build the chemistry first and really get the familiarity before we can layer some things in,” he said.

“This week in practice, we had a little bit more opportunity to look at some of those types of things, and I feel like we’re continuing to get comfortable and head in the right direction.”

winnipegfreepress.com/joshuafreysam