The Buffalo Bandits will look to make another championship run as they open the 2024 NLL Playoffs with a single-elimination quarterfinal matchup with the Georgia Swarm at KeyBank Center on Saturday. Faceoff is set for 7:00 p.m. on ESPNU with streaming available on ESPN+ and TSN+. Radio coverage can be found on WGR 550.

The Bandits secured the home playoff game with a 14-5 win over the Las Vegas Desert Dogs last Saturday. Josh Byrne (3+6) and Dhane Smith (2+10) combined for 21 points while Matt Vinc and the Buffalo defense limited the Desert Dogs to just two second-half goals.

Smith tallied 10 assists in the victory to end the regular season with 101 assists, becoming the first NLL player to post 100 or more assists in a single season and breaking his previous NLL record of 96, which he set in 2023.

“It was awesome to know that we were gonna be at home,” alternate captain Nick Weiss said. “We know how great our fan base is and they deserve us to be playing at home for this playoff game and there’s nothing like playing at home in Banditland.”

A letter before playoffs from our captain to you, Banditland! ✉️

Read the full letter: https://t.co/KyGjvskaBk pic.twitter.com/s1Le5KlQig

— Buffalo Bandits (@NLLBandits) April 25, 2024

The No. 4-seed Bandits will take on the Swarm, who fell to the No. 5 seed after an 11-10 loss to Rochester last Friday. Georgia previously defeated Buffalo by a score of 9-8 at KeyBank Center on Dec. 29, but Byrne knows this game won’t be the same as their early-season meeting as the Bandits enter the matchup on a four-game winning streak.

“No matter what team you’re talking about, the team you see at the beginning of the year is vastly different from the team you see at the end of the year,” he said. “For us, it’s a bit of mentality, a bit of groove, and even just in general, you were still learning the fundamentals of the way you want to play.

“You learn a lot about who you are as a group and who you are as a team and what we want to be known for – the character of our team. I think both teams are very different and it’s gonna make for a lot of fun and a great playoff game.”

Here’s more ahead of the game.

Smith’s 100 club

Smith is not only the only player to have tallied more than 100 assists in a single season in NLL history, but also the only player to have exceeded 86. The Bandits’ alternate captain has broken the record in each of the past three seasons.

Smith has credited his success to his chemistry with his teammates, especially the relationship with the league’s leading scorer in Byrne.

“… He’s the quarterback, everything goes through him,” Byrne said. “We trust him to make the right decisions. … When you have someone like that, it makes your job easy. It makes other teams have to focus on that and game plan on that and sometimes they forget about you. I think me and him – chemistry wise – have been on another level. I feel like we’re always looking for each other and we can tell what we’re gonna do with the ball before we even do it.”

The duo led the league in points this season ranking first and second. Byrne (53+82) and Smith (33+101) combined for 269 points in 18 games, for 14.9 points per game.

March to the playoffs

The Bandits went into March below .500 following a loss to the Vancouver Warriors on the road. Despite that, the team never lost faith in what it could do.

“The funny thing is with this team, at no point in the season did I have any doubt what we could do,” Weiss said. “I think I can speak for the whole team in that factor. We even talked about it. It was so strange to us that we weren’t playing well and weren’t winning games and weren’t at our usual pedigree. But we still knew what we had in the locker room – that we are still a championship team.”

After March 1, the Bandits went 6-1 to clinch the last home playoff spot, ending the regular season with an 11-7 record.

Scouting the Swarm

The Swarm posted a 10-8 record and have split their last four games.

Down the stretch of the season, Georgia’s wins have come from impressive goalie play from Brett Dobson and strong defensive efforts. The Swarm allowed just seven and nine goals in their last two wins, and much like the Bandits, their defense consists of a mix of veteran presence and younger pieces. Players like John Ranagan and captain Jordan MacIntosh have been key to guiding the Swarm defense around their young goalie.

Offensively, the Swarm have a trio of 80+ point scorers this season. Lyle Thompson (42+45) and Andrew Kew (36+51) each totaled 87 points on the year with Shayne Jackson (30+53) right behind them with 83.