Kyle Spain and the Erie BayHawks have more work to do before the D-League playoffs begin next month.

A night in Reno.

The BayHawks resume their five-game road trip tomorrow at Reno (26-16) and follow that up with two games at Bakersfield (25-16) before rounding it up Tuesday at Fort Wayne (19-23).

Erie opened the road trip with a 133-126 loss Sunday at Iowa, which has the D-League’s best record at 32-11.

Erie (27-14) has clinched the playoffs and is right now a fourth seed. The top four seeds have home-court advantage for the first round and the top three seeds get to pick their first-round opponent.

Reno is just 1.5 games behind Erie and Bakersfield trails the BayHawks by two games. If the BayHawks lose those three, they could drop from fourth to seventh in a hurry.

Plus the Bighorns and Jam will own the head-to-head tiebreaker against the BayHawks.

And don’t think that game at Fort Wayne will be easy.

Erie is 4-1 against the Mad Ants, but they’re vying for the final playoff spot and have a former BayHawk in point guard Derek Raivio, who landed in Fort Wayne following a three-team trade last month.

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New Mexico Thunderbirds (14-19) at Erie BayHawks (21-9)

Saturday, 7 p.m., at Tullio Arena

On the air: WFNN-AM 1330; www.nba.com/dleague

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Erie — PF Ivan Johnson (Named to East team for Feb. 19 D-League All-Star Game in Los Angeles. Scored a game-high 37 points in Erie’s 125-100 win against New Mexico on Thursday night.) … SG Blake Ahearn (The all-time leading in free throw shooting percentage in NCAA Division I history at 94.6 percent, Ahearn is 53-of-53 from the line this season. Team’s second leading scorer at 15.6 ppg.) … PF Kyle Goldcamp (The former Gannon star established career highs in points with 19 and blocks with six in Thursday’s win).

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Erie's first-year coach, Jay Larranaga, has the BayHawks in playoff contention.

So far, so good for the Erie BayHawks.

With a new head coach, the Erie BayHawks are 17-9 heading into Friday’s game at Maine against the Red Claws (11-16).

Last season, Erie only won 21 games.

This season’s record is a bit skewed because the BayHawks are playing in the East Conference, which has only two teams with winning records, but they win at conference leader Iowa (19-7) on Christmas Day, 114-110 after losing to the Energy on a last-second shot on the road.

Jay Larranaga had never been a head coach in the states and his only head coaching experience was with the Irish National Team, but so far, he’s shown why Erie hired him to replace John Treloar, who left to become the Director of Player Personnel for the Phoenix Suns.

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In beginning his second stint in the D-League, Miami Heat rookie center Dexter Pittman scored 15 points in the Sioux Falls Skyforce's 97-91 loss at Erie against the BayHawks on Friday night.

“YOU PLAY FOR THE HEAT?”

“YOU PLAY FOR THE HEAT?”

Yes, Ivan, Dexter Pittman is a rookie center with the Miami Heat.

While Pittman was on the bench for the Sioux Falls Skyforce on Friday night at Tullio Arena, Erie BayHawks power forward Ivan Johnson was barking at him while waiting for one of his teammates to attempt a free throw.

Pittman said stuff like that happened to him during his first run with the Skyforce this season.

“I expect it,” he said. “When you come down to this level, you’ve got a big target on your back. It’s nothing.”

Pittman is where Johnson wants to be – the NBA.  So Johnson was taking this game even more personal since he was matched up against the 6-foot, 11-inch, 300-plus pound rookie out of Texas.

“That just shows me that I can play in the league (NBA),” Johnson said. “Playing against dudes like him. I’m not saying he’s a trash player, but I can hang with some of the best of them.”

They went at each other in Erie’s 97-91 win. Johnson had a game-high 25 points and five rebounds while Pittman had 15 points and just three boards.

It was fun to watch.

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Tasheed Carr is certain he's going to make Erie's final 10-man roster.

Tasheed Carr says he’s focused on just getting better every day in training camp.

Making the Erie BayHawks’ final 10-man roster is a given for him.

“I think I’ve worked hard and I think I’ve earned a spot,” Carr said after Tuesdays’ morning practice. “So right now I’m focused on every day getting better and helping out my team anyway possible and get ready for Friday.”

Now Carr was considered a leader while at St. Joe’s, but the BayHawks are using him as a 2-guard instead of a point guard. Since he can do both and shoot the ball, that makes Carr more attractive to keep on the team.

Erie must get its roster down to 10 by 5 p.m. Thursday. The BayHawks open the season Friday against Springfield at Tullio Arena.

Hard to say who the BayHawks will cut, but their new coach, Jay Larranaga, plans to make the final cuts by the end of the night and inform the players Wednesday morning who’s staying and who’s leaving.

Erie currently has 13 players now. Larranaga hasn’t made a cut since early on in training camp so you know he likes the remaining players.

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First-round pick Ivan Johnson gives the Erie BayHawks an inside scoring presence.

The Erie BayHawks enter their third training camp with a new coach in Jay Larranaga, who approached the 2010 D-League Draft with three main objectives:

1. Get bigs.

2. Get guards who can shoot and exude toughness

3. Get guys who aren’t coming straight out of college.

After Monday’s draft, Larranaga feels as if he accomplished those goals in the eight-round draft. That remains to be seen, but for now, let’s take a look at who he picked.

1. Ivan Johnson (6-8, 230, PF, Ca. St.-San Bernadino). He played 45 games in the D-League and averaged 13.9 points and 6.7 rebounds in 2007-08. Big guy. Inside presence, but while playing overseas in Korea this past season, he got kicked out of a pro league for swearing and delivering an obscene gesture to a referee. Now apparently it was the final game of a championship series his team lost, but you can look at this two ways. One, that’s poor sportsmanship, but two, his team was in the championship series and I’m sure he had something to do with that, too. What Erie is getting is a guy who at age 26 is likely making his last push to get in the NBA. So he should be driven.

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