After closing out their respective best-of-3 first-round series Monday night, the Austin Toros and Canton Charge will face each other in Game 1 of the D-League semifinals Thursday night at 7:30 in Canton.
The expansion Charge, a seventh seed, won Game 3 at second-seeded Springfield 115-106 while the third-seeded Toros beat the fifth-seeded Erie BayHawks 99-85 in Game 3 in Austin.
Two in. Two more to go.
Tonight, seventh-seeded Canton and second-seeded Springfield will settle their best-of-3 D-League first-round playoff series beginning at 7 in Springfield. The expansion Charge took Game 1, but the Armor stayed alive after winning Game 2 in overtime Sunday.
At 8:30 p.m., fifth-seeded Erie and third-seeded Austin will have their Game 3 at 8:30 p.m. in Austin. The BayHawks won Game 1 at home, but the Toros took Game 2 by 10 points Sunday.
The winner of these two series will face each other in the semifinals.
One more.
If the Erie BayHawks (27-13) win at Iowa (31-11) in today’s 5 p.m. game, they will clinch a playoff berth for the second time in their three-year D-League history.
If they lose, the BayHawks can still clinch if Fort Wayne loses at Maine today. That game begins at 5 p.m. as well.
With Erie having 10 games left, it will almost certainly make the playoffs. The key for the BayHawks is to move up in the seeding.
Right now, they’re fourth and although the top four teams get home-court advantage in a best-of-3 series, the top three get to pick their opponent.
Iowa, Tulsa and Rio Grande Valley are the top three seeds right now. Erie is 2-6 against those three teams this season. If you’re the fourth team, you basically have the remaining team the top three teams didn’t want to play. Now you might get lucky and draw a team you match up with, but then again, you may draw a team that can give you problems.
