The Closer is back

The Canadian Elite Basketball League’s 2022 Clutch Player of the Year was up to his old tricks Wednesday against the visiting Scarborough Shooting Stars.

Khalil Ahmad, the author of 10 Elam game-winners in the 2022 season, added another one to his resume in his first game of the season for the Niagara River Lions to help the squad record an 81-78 victory.

With a total of one-hour of practice time with his team after arriving in St. Catharines at 3 a.m. Monday, Ahmad was all over target time.

With Scarborough leading 72-69 and the target score set at 81, the Californian tied the game at 72-72 with a three. Then, with the Shooting Stars leading 76-74, Ahmad scored on a layup, two free throws and finally a contested three to close out the game for Niagara.

“He’s the closer. There was a moment there when he was complaining to the refs and I was going to take him out but that’s Khalil. He is difficult to stop and he made a ridiculous shot to close the game,” River Lions head coach/GM Victor Raso said.

Ahmad is clearly comfortable with the ball in his hands at crunch time.

“It is confidence in myself. I have put a lot work in over my career and the coaches, team and organization has put a lot of confidence in me,” he said. “It’s really easy to make something happen with all that confidence behind me.”

The win was not pretty for Niagara.

“It was a weird one with us getting Khalil in like that, having to figure out rotations and I didn’t like it,” Raso said. “I thought we never played well the entire game. I am not giving up the win by any means but we have to play better than that.”

Niagara never looked good on offence and missed a lot of open looks.

“The energy we played with on offence wasn’t great. Incorporating a guy like Khalil isn’t an easy thing to do because he is a ball-dominant guard who looks to create for his teammates,” he said. “It wasn’t as much Khalil as the other guys on the floor. Most of the guys had never played with Khalil before and there was some stickiness at times but that was to be expected. We overcame playing poorly to win down the stretch and we need to get better.”

He isn’t expecting things to click overnight with Ahmad now in the lineup.

“It is going to take a few weeks.”

Ahmad agreed it wasn’t the River Lions’ best performance.

“We made a lot of mistakes and a lot of that is on me because it is hard to bring someone in. I practised for an hour so I barely knew the plays or the principles on defence. As we get more time together as a collective group, things are going to go up.”

Wednesday’s game was very physical with the refs deciding early on to swallow their whistles and let the teams play. It meant playing through some serious contact for both teams.

“We need to do a better job of that too,” Raso said.

Ahmad had no issues with the officiating.

“Especially when it is two teams like this. We are all big, physical guys and you have to let us play. No one wants a game with a 1,000 fouls. Let us makes plays and we will figure things out.”

Wednesday’s 11 a.m. game was the team’s annual School Day Game and the 3,186 in attendance was made up mostly of schools kids screaming at the top of their very healthy lungs. No doubt, there was a run on Advil at local drug stores after the game ended.

“Holy smokes. My head is ringing,” Raso said. “They were so loud. There was a time at halftime where they were testing out who was the loudest school and it was very hard to hear.”

Ahmad enjoyed the atmosphere.

“The energy was crazy. I literally slept for five hours, woke up early and playing in front of this energy it’s hard not to get it going. The kids were so loud.”

Niagara improved to 5-3 with the win over the defending champion Shooting Stars (4-4) and moved into first place in the Eastern Conference standings.

STATS PACK

River Lions 81 Shooting Stars 78

BPSN Star of the Game: Khalil Ahmad with 18 points and five rebounds.

For the Niagara River Lions: Ahmad 18; Jahvon Blair, 17 points and five rebounds; Nathan Cayo, 13 points; Louden Love, 12 points and eight rebounds; Omari Moore, eight points, 11 rebounds and nine assists.

For the Scarborough Shooting Stars: Donovan Williams 29; Tevian Jones 21.

Stats pack: Shooting percentage: Niagara 37.8, Scarborough 43.1. Free throws: Niagara 16-22, Scarborough 13-20. Rebounds: Niagara 49, Scarborough 41. Turnovers: Niagara 16, Scarborough 18.

Up next: Niagara hosts the Montreal Alliance Friday at 7 p.m. Visit www.riverlions.ca/tickets for more information.