Swarm is next up for Bandits

Victoria Sun

Thursday, May 11, 2000 | 10:04 a.m.

Beating New Mexico in overtime to advance to the second round of the inaugural International Basketball League playoffs gave the Silver Bandits a taste of what they hunger for -- an IBL championship.

"It was a feeling like no other," Las Vegas forward Harold Ellis said. "With J.R. (Henderson), Isaac (Burton) and Rocky (Walls), we have the most talented team in the league.

"Going into the season, we were supposed to win the whole thing. But our record wasn't as good as it should have been. Now we want to win it all. Our goal is to bring Las Vegas a championship."

To get it, the Silver Bandits will first have to take care of the St. Louis Swarm, which did end up with the league's best regular-season record at 47-17. The Silver Bandits finished the season 37-27 and were 5-7 against the Swarm.

Las Vegas will host St. Louis at the Thomas & Mack Center at 7 tonight in Game 1 of the best-of-three series. Games 2 and 3 (if necessary) will be played at St. Louis.

"It's very important to win at home because then we'll put the pressure on them going back to St. Louis," Ellis said. "That will make them have to win on their home floor.

"We know we can win there. We've won twice there so we feel good about our chances."

The Swarm is led by IBL rookie of the year Danny Johnson, the league's second-leading scorer (20.7 points a game) behind Henderson (22.6 points).

Silver Bandits coach Barry Hecker likened St. Louis to New Mexico because both teams like to shoot from outside.

Along with Johnson, the Silver Bandits will have to contain St. Louis' Antwain Smith, Erwin Claggett and Derek Grimm.

And just like the first series, Hecker expects every game to be hotly contested.

"Close," Hecker said. "I think it'll be a pretty good ballgame.

"They've got a few guys that can hurt you so we have to play good team defense. We're going to have to come out and play hard again. The guys know what's on the line, we're going to stay in our routine."

A broadcast of tonight's game can be heard on www.knews970.com starting at 6:45.

Victoria Sun is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach her at victoria@lasvegassun.com or 259-4078