EVERETT – The Everett Explosion and its barely secret weapon, red-hot Justin Murray, will welcome the West Division’s only other contender to the Events Center tonight.
And the Portland Chinooks (10-5) will be bringing some added artillery of their own.
Point guard Shammgod Wells, who had a brief NBA career while playing under the name God Shammgod, was finishing up a season overseas when the Explosion beat Portland 124-99 on May 20. He has since returned to the team and is expected to play tonight.
“It’s going to make things really tough. He’s a great point guard,” said Everett coach Randy Redwine, whose 12-2 team has won eight consecutive games to take a convincing lead atop the International Basketball League’s West Division.
“We only have one true point guard (Darrell Walker), and he’s pretty beat up. So it’s going to be difficult. We’ll try to devise a plan to slow (Wells) down – not to stop him, but to slow him down.”
Portland’s leading scorer, David Lucas, is still out with a hand injury. That leaves Wells as the leading active scorer, at 27.3 points per game.
The Explosion have plenty of firepower of their own. Leading scorer Rashaad Powell is back in the starting lineup after being used in a limited role off the bench in the last meeting because of an injury, and the 6-foot-6 Murray has been playing his best basketball of the season in recent weeks.
Murray, a forward who played two seasons of college ball at Washington State from 2000 through 2002, has led the Explosion in scoring (20.8 points per game) and rebounding (9.0) over the past five games. With just six games left in the regular season, he’s getting hot at the right time.
“All the players have made a commitment to make a run for the West Division championship,” Redwine said. “And with Justin, the more that’s at stake, the better he plays.”
Murray is coming off his best game of the season, having scored 28 points and added 13 rebounds in a four-point win over the Tacoma Jazz.
The 26-year-old Tacoma native has come a long way since his days at WSU. He was a part-time player there, having averaged just 2.1 points per game in 10 appearances as a junior and 1.6 in nine games as a senior.
But he has blossomed since playing in four different professional leagues, including one in Brazil. He currently ranks fourth on the Explosion with a 14.3 points-per-game average, and he continually guards the opposing teams’ top players while playing the small and power forward positions.
“In my opinion, Justin has been overlooked by a lot of people,” Redwine said. “He’s been playing for me for seven or eight years (including pro-am leagues) and has gotten better each year.”
Murray’s stats have steadily improved throughout the 2007 IBL season. While he often took a back seat to scorers like Powell, Donald Watts and Chris Weakley, he’s been more assertive lately and earned the stats to warrant it.
Redwine said that he asked Murray to start scoring more points so that opposing teams couldn’t key on one or two guys every night. With a playoff spot already locked up, the Explosion hope to start spreading out the scoring more to bring a balanced look to the postseason.
“In the playoffs, teams are going to key in on what (statistics) they see on the Internet, guys like Rashaad Powell and Donald Watts,” Redwine said. “That’s why I’ve been trying to get more players involved. The last four or five games, other guys have really improved their scoring – and that’s no accident.”
More than anything, the Explosion are looking to extend their winning streak to nine tonight. Portland has not played a game since that May 20 loss to Everett, and in the past nine days the Explosion has opened up a 21/2-game lead. A win tonight could all but wrap up the West Division title, as Portland will be down to just seven remaining games after tonight’s contest.
Two teams from the division will qualify for the eight-team postseason, so both the Explosion and Chinooks are likely to make it there no matter what happens tonight at the Events Center.
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