A Day Before, Here's How the Firebirds Are Getting Ready for the Playoffs

One day remains until the Firebirds begin their playoff journey, taking on the Jamestown Jackals.

With the team in a great position to make a deep run in the playoffs this year, it all starts with a first-round win. After Tuesday, assuming all goes according to plan, the Firebirds will play again at home on Thursday, followed by a best-of-three series against the Jacksonville 95ers.

To finish preparing for the Jackals, the Firebirds had team practice this morning at 10 AM. The players spent time beforehand putting up shots, stretching, and getting loose.

Once practice started, they began by doing some stretches and ball-handling drills, per usual. After that, they moved into dribble combos with trash cans, making moves and finishing at the rim. The layups later turned into jump shots, as they worked on shooting off the drill.

After dribbling work, the focus moved more to shooting. After dribbling, they worked on catch-and-shoot threes. While the shooting started uncontested, it moved to contested soon after, to simulate more realistic game-like scenarios. Shooting, Coach MacKinnon, emphasized, was the key to being successful.

Next, the team spent some time doing shell defense. This defense is designed to work on playing defense as a team and working with each other in certain deficits. After lots of defensive slides, communication, and defensive rebounds, the team moved on to working on controlled live 5v5.

Controlled 5v5 in this situation means the team stops after every possession, so they’re working on specific scenarios in the half-court, not fast breaks and transition offense.

After that, the team did work on transition offense, before calling it a day. Coach MacKinnon was optimistic about the practice, and the game as well; he said that if the team plays up to its standards, then they would have a very good chance to win against Jamestown.

To make sure you can watch the Firebirds take on Jamestown, buy tickets here. They’re going quickly, and we want to make sure that we sell out so we can give our guys the playoff atmosphere that they deserve.

See you tomorrow!

-Tex