River Lions victorious in debut
The Niagara River Lions were winners in their opening game of Canadian Elite Basketball League play.
Playing on the road in Saskatoon Thursday against the Saskatchewan Rattlers, the River Lions eked out a narrow 99-97 victory when a last-second three by Saskatchewan came up short.
River Lions head coach/GM Victor Raso was delighted to open his pro career with a victory.
“It was a great feeling,” he said. “It was just a game once the ball went up but it was a dogfight and a lot of fun.”
The game was close throughout with the hosts building an 11-point lead at one point in the game and Niagara’s biggest margin being 10 points. Neither team had a scoring run of more than 10 points.
“I think it was two teams not only trying to figure the other team out, but they were trying to figure themselves out,” Raso said. “It has been such as quick training camp and bringing guys in which makes it very difficult to be seasoned and well-versed in what you do, not to mention trying to figure out what other teams do well.”
Raso felt the River Lions struggled with balancing playing their style against the Rattlers’ individual players.
“Late in the second quarter, Alex Johnson (nine points and three rebounds) came in and I thought he changed our intensity.”
In the third quarter, Raso watched his team start to play like the team it is.
“We are a very tough defensive team that can really get out and go in transition,” he said. “We are very good defenders and we can make plays, but I thought it took us to the mid-third quarter to do that and we finally got the stops we needed and we went on a run.”
The Rattlers built quarter leads of 20-19, 51-45 and 72-71 before Niagara rallied in the final quarter.
“It felt like we were waiting to play like ourselves and we finally did down the stretch,” Raso said.
Top performers for Niagara were: Guillaume Boucard, 19 points and six boards; Trae Bell-Haynes, 18 points and four rebounds; Sam Muldrow, 15 points; Dorian Pinson, 14 points and three boards; Ryan Anderson, 11 points and four boards; and, Yohanny Dalembert, 10 points.
Tavrion Dawson topped the Rattlers with 29 points while Alex Campbell and Marion Johnson netted 19 apiece.
Niagara shot 60 per cent from the floor compared to 58 per cent by the Rattlers. Saskatchewan won the rebounding battle 30-27.
Niagara is right back at it Friday night with a game in Edmonton against the Stingers and Raso sees a few things his team needs to clean up.
“It’s more our starts,” he said. “We need to make sure we are dictating where the ball goes on defensive end because, when we do that, our defence is pretty tough,” he said. “When we lay back and let the ball handler dictate where we go, that’s a problem and that was a problem last week in our scrimmage.
“We had some issues with that, but it’s our first game and we are going to figure it out as the season goes on.”
Raso didn’t go too deep into his bench, but neither did the Rattlers.
“They were big and their big Americans played really well,” he said. “We got in a little bit of foul trouble and we had to roll with our guys.”
Niagara opens at home Thursday, May 16 at 7 p.m. at the Meridian Centre versus Edmonton.
