The National Basketball League of Canada post-season may be months away, but Sudbury Five head coach Logan Stutz expects a similar atmosphere when his team visits the Windsor Express on Saturday night.

Tipoff is at 7 p.m.

The hosts shouldn’t be lacking in motivation, after the Five used a second-half surge to defeat the Express at Sudbury Community Arena this past Sunday, 111-104.

“It is definitely challenging to play a team back to back,” said Stutz, reached during the trip south on Friday afternoon. “You kind of get that playoff feel, because that’s how you play in the playoffs, and then there’s adjustments that are made and I’m definitely expecting Windsor to come out and try to control the pace and control us with their defence, so it’s something we have made some adjustments with, too, so we can be ready for them when we get down there.”

Down 11 points at halftime last weekend, the Five relied on a red-hot shooting performance by guard Jaylen Bland — the NBLC’s current points-per-game leader, with 25.8 — and clutch buckets from the likes of Braylon Rayson, Dexter Williams Jr., Marlon Johnson and Jarryn Skeete, to outscore their Central Division rivals 61-43 over the final 24 minutes.

“We had to keep our spacing, make their defence work, maybe one more pass, don’t let them off the hook easy,” Stutz said. “If we have a good shot, maybe we can turn it down for a great shot. That helped us break their defence down.”

He expects the Express staff, led by veteran bench boss Bill Jones, to make adjustments of their own ahead of Saturday’s rematch. Windsor does, after all, boast the NBLC’s second-stingiest defence, with 101.2 points against per game, and an efficient offence, shooting 46 per cent from the field through nine games this season.

“I see them trapping sometimes with their defence, either first or second screen, but then we’ll see them on offence working the ball down low a bit more. They had one big man out when they travelled up to us and I’m expecting him to play in the offensive and defensive end.”

Stutz hopes for another strong performance from Skeete, Sudbury’s most recent signee, who had six points and three rebounds in his debut this past Sunday.

“He’s a great fit with the guys,” Stutz said of Skeete, who previously played for the St. John’s Edge, NBLC finalists in 2018-19. “It’s funny, because he hit those timely shots every time I played versus him and when I coached versus him, so it’s great to have him on our team, getting those timely shots. It’s something I can expect him to do for the Five this season, for sure.”

While some local teams have been hit hard by seasonal illness of late — the Sudbury Wolves, for example, have been without key players in several games recently — the Five have been relatively healthy so far.

“We kind of got lucky with that St. John’s trip being cancelled,” said Stutz, referring to a planned trip to Newfoundland that was postponed due to winter weather. “We were really able to rest up and get healthy. We have had little, nagging sickness or injuries here and there, but we have been pretty blessed with our health this year and I have to give a lot of credit to our health staff.”

The Five are in Kitchener on Sunday to visit the KW Titans. That game tips off at 2 p.m.

bleeson@postmedia.com

Twitter: @ben_leeson