StingRays Put It All on the Line

The American Basketball League’s most consistently inconsistent team, the Long Beach StingRays, has no more room for a bad game tonight in the rubber match of the opening playoff series against the Colorado Xplosion at the Pyramid.

The StingRays’ season-long pattern of good-bad-good-bad games dogs them still, right to either elimination or advancement to the semifinals.

On Saturday, Long Beach routed Colorado, 96-72, at Anaheim.

On Sunday, Long Beach suffered an embarrassing 88-68 loss at Denver.

Tonight, the best-of-three series will be played out with the focus sharpened on two of the ABL’s most physical players--Long Beach’s 6-foot-4 Venus Lacy and the Xplosion’s 6-3 Tari Phillips.

In only 24 hours, Long Beach managed to make Phillips look like an all-time great. Allowed to roam freely near the basket, she scored 24 points on nine-of-11 shooting, almost all putbacks or short jump shots.

She also had a game-high 12 rebounds. In Saturday’s game, she had 16 points and eight rebounds, and was seven for 12 from the floor.

Phillips came out aggressively Sunday at Denver, and sparks flew from the outset. Then elbows flew. Teammates had to pull Phillips and Lacy apart. Lacy wound up with a knot on her forehead and a small facial cut.

When the teams headed down the same hallway to their locker rooms for halftime, they scuffled again. Colorado guard Debbie Black, one of those intervening in the hallway, put the right spin on it.

“It was silly, really,” she said.

“We’re supposed to be concentrating on playing our best basketball, not breaking up fights.”

Playoff fever, Phillips called it.

“I got emotional and Venus got emotional,” she said.

“It’s an emotional game, and it’s the playoffs.”

Colorado, 21-23 in the regular season, was 3-4 against the StingRays and outrebounded Long Beach only once until Sunday, when it wasn’t close: 40-30.

“Rebounding is the key,” Colorado Coach Sheryl Estes said.

“If we can do that again, we have a good chance.”

ABL Notes

Philadelphia Rage Coach Lisa Boyer, as expected, was fired by the league Tuesday. Last season, Boyer got Richmond into the league finals against Columbus. But this season, after the move to Philadelphia, the Rage had a league-worst 13-31 mark. The move leaves only two coaches of the original eight in place: Sheryl Estes of Colorado and Brian Agler of Columbus. . . . Defending champion Columbus is the only Eastern Conference team in the playoffs. The Quest meets San Jose in one best-of-three semifinals round, starting Saturday at Columbus. West champion Portland meets the Colorado-Long Beach winner beginning Friday.

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ABL Playoffs

StingRays vs. Colorado

* Game 1: StingRays 96, Colorado 72

* Game 2: Colorado 88, StingRays 68

* Game 3: Tonight at Pyramid, 7:30