CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. – Can the Island Storm beat the Halifax Hurricanes without forward Du’Vaughn Maxwell?
“That’s the question everybody wants to know (the answer to),” Storm guard Franklin Session said before Wednesday’s practice.
The first opportunity the team has to answer the question comes tonight when the teams meet for Game 3 of their best-of-five National Basketball League of Canada first-round playoff series. Game time is 7 p.m. at the Eastlink Centre.
The Storm shocked everybody Tuesday when it announced it had released Maxwell, the talented and versatile forward from New York. The squad didn’t provide a reason, citing privacy for the player.
While the team is trying to move forward without Maxwell, the questions remain.
Session said Maxwell was a great player at both ends of the floor.
“I think it will be very tough to win without Max, but this team isn’t one person,” he said. “One person doesn't make this team; one person doesn’t break this team. I think we can definitely win without Maxwell. It will be tough. It will be hard. It will be challenging, but I think we can do it.”
The talented guard said the squad’s morale is good, and it just wants to get back to winning and concentrating on basketball.
Head coach Tim Kendrick is confident his team can win without Maxwell and said it is hoping to have Chris Johnson and Tyler Scott back from injury. He said one of the players is probable and listed the other as a more of a game-time decision.
“We’re just talking about moving forward with the guys we have,” Kendrick said Wednesday. “We’ll do what we have to do to try and get a win tomorrow night.”
The teams split the first two games in Halifax and the Storm feels it played well, except for a bad third quarter that cost them Game 2 when it was outscored 41-18.
“Their third quarter hurt us — badly — and we understand that, as a group,” Kendrick said.
He added said his team had more rebounds and assists in the win and didn’t in the loss.
“I think we have to move the basketball better and I think we have to rebound the basketball better,” he said.
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Scott and Johnson are both adept outside shooters, who can stretch the defence and provide inside opportunities for driving guards like Session and the squads bigs, like Carl Hall and Chris Anderson.
Session, who averaged 20 points during the regular season, has scored 15 and 14 points, respectively, in the first two games of the series with Halifax.
“I don’t feel like I’ve played my best against them yet,” Session said, quickly quantifying he doesn’t have to score a bunch in order to be successful. “My best game means we win. . . Personal stats . . . they don't matter if you’re not winning games.”
With all the adversity, the team has been through this season, this week’s news is another chance for people outside the team to count them out. Kendrick knows that and believes his guys are up to the challenge.
“I think we have a crack . . . to shock the world Thursday,” he said.
