Energy win again - now 15-2, but . . .

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’Awful’ win for 15-2 Energy

Fifteen and two.

No, that’s not the answer Mike Tyson gave when they asked him what adds up to 18.

It’s the Edmonton Energy’s record, a mark that’s growing more and more impressive each week, even though they looked a little punch drunk in their most recent victory.

"That was awful," said head coach Paul Sir, after a sloppy 101-85 victory over the visiting Tacoma Tide.

"I’d rather win ugly than lose ugly, but that was ugly. That was by far our weakest performance all year. We had some good moments but we didn’t have enough of them. The guys were not ready."

The teams are back at it tonight (7:15 p.m.) at the downtown MacEwan gym.

"When you’re not mentally ready little things start to happen," continued Sir.

"You fumble the ball, you miss layups that you should make ... In fairness to the guys, everybody lays an egg during the season and this was our bad night."

It sounds odd to be kicking your own butt after winning by 16, but they were.

"Overall it might have been our worst game of the year," said six-foot-11 centre Lee Scruggs, who had 20 points on the night.

"A win is a win, but we’re building for a championship here, so we have to get all the games like this out of our system. In the playoffs one bad game ends your season."

The Energy opened with a 10-0 run, in what had all the earmarks of another rout, but Tacoma, as advertised, doesn’t go away easily and quickly ran off 11 in a row of their own to take the lead.

It was game on.

An 11-4 Energy run put them in front 22-15, but once again the Tide came back to close the gap (26-22).

"When they came out of the locker-room we knew their heads weren’t in it," said Sir. "We never let the game unfold. (Tacoma’s) primary strength is they have really quick hands and they’re very good at attacking the ball when you bring it down low around the basket and our guys never learned."

They wound up turning it over dozens of times, but good teams know how to win on off nights and that’s what Edmonton did. The Energy made another push, this time a 13-2 spurt late in the first quarter and early in the second, to go up by 14 points, and would protect that cushion the rest of the way home.

Steve Sir laid the foundation for the win, scoring 21 points in the first half, including five three-pointers.

Edmonton got a little nervous late in the third quarter, when Tacoma closed it to 76-65, but that would be as close as they got.

"On the offensive end we got away from what we did all year, as far as running our plays," said Scruggs, who thought Edmonton should have been able to pull away. "We tried to do a lot of one-on-one stuff, but a win is a win."

They’ll have to be better moving ahead if they’re going to protect their No.1 seed heading into the playoff tournament.

"Tacoma leaves here thinking they should beat this team, they’re not that good, they weren’t too happy with the officiating," said Sir.

"So they’re going to come out (tonight) expecting to win. We’re going to have to be a lot better tomorrow,"

All fathers get in free to tonight’s game (if accompanied by a child) and receive a free Moosehead cooler bag, a gift from Classic Landscape Centre and a draw for a GPS from Ginger Communications.

ROBERT.TYCHKOWSKI@SUNMEDIA.CA