The Niigata Albirex BB will enter the postseason after a remarkably light schedule in recent weeks. So light in fact that it's easy to forget when the team actually played games in back-to-back weeks.

That occurred the final weekend of February and first weekend of March.

The Albirex (19-19), making preparations for this weekend's final regular-season series against the brilliant Hamamatsu Higashimikawa Phoenix (39-5), had 12 of their final 16 games canceled due to the aftermath of March 11 earthquake, which caused three Eastern Conference foes - the Sendai 89ers, Saitama Broncos and Tokyo Apache - to end their seasons early.