River Lions meet under-rated Alliance in semifinals
Niagara’s Aaryb Rai was named the CEBL’s Sixth Man of the Year Wednesday. The team plays Montreal in the semifinals Friday night.
The Niagara River Lions began their quest for their first Canadian Elite Basketball League championship on a winning note Wednesday night at the league’s annual awards ceremony at Le Centre Sheraton Montréal.
Niagara’s Aaryn Rai was named the CEBL Sixth Man of the Year, Khalil Ahmad was named to the All-CEBL First Team and Jahvon Blair, who won’t play for the team in the Final Four, was selected to the All-CEBL Second Team and the All-Canadian Team.
Blair was a finalist for the Canadian Player of the Year and Omari Moore was a finalist for Defensive Player of the Year.
“They were all very deserving and it was great that Aaryn could win. I thought Amari and Juggy (Blair) could have won too but the other guys that won had very commendable seasons as well,” River Lions head coach/GM Victor Raso said. “For us to have two guys up awards who haven’t played in the CEBL before was really cool and to have Khalil as a First Team all-star as well was awesome.”
Raso felt if Ahmad had been with the team longer he would have taken home league MVP honours.
The River Lions have been in Montreal since Tuesday evening in advance of Friday’s 8 p.m. seminal game against the host Montreal Alliance.
The team practised Wednesday and Thursday before watching film Thursday night and having a shoot-around Friday afternoon.
“It (the semifinal) is going to be a really tough one. Montreal is a good team,” Raso said. “They were 6-14 but their plus-minus on the year is 43 points. That means they have lost a lot of close games and we have been in two of those really close games. They know that they are capable and talented, they’re athletic, their Americans are very good and their Canadians are solid.”
The Alliance will also be playing in front of a sold-out crowd.
“Every time we come to Montreal it is a tough place to play. The environment tomorrow night is really going to give them a boost and we are going to have to be a very good, solid version of ourselves over the course of 40 minutes to get a win,” Raso said.
The secret to success is simple.
“We need to play playoff basketball and the advantage is we just had a do-or-die playoff game. In the playoffs, you need to value every single possession, you can’t get too high or too low and you can’t waste possessions because of the possession before whether a good thing happened or a bad thing happened. You have to fight off momentum in both directions and we have to be physical. We have to win the rebounding and loose ball battles and we will need to make open shots.”
The River Lions will need to shut down Montreal’s three Americans, who went off for a combined 69 points in an earlier game versus Niagara.
“Ahmed Hill has scored a 1,000 points in the CEBL and he can score 30 on any given night,” Raso said. “Jordan Bowden is very similar to Ahmed. They are both incredibly streaky shooters and probably their most talented player is Chris Smith who was a second team all-star and he is a young guy. He is only 23 or 24 but he’s a 6-foot-10 NBA-type talent.”
Sadly for Niagara, the River Lions won’t have Blair in the lineup this weekend.
“It was a very unfortunate situation. His team in France is forcing him to leave which shouldn’t be the case but unfortunately he had a choice of losing his contract or leaving.”
Earlier this summer, Raso hoped he would ‘get lucky” and have all his players available for championship weekend.
“We got super frickin’ close but it is part of the CEBL and we are going to have to win regardless. I think we can do it.”
T.J Lall is back to full strength and will replace Blair in the starting lineup. Kimbal Mackenzie, who only played a few minutes in last Saturday’s Eastern Conference semifinal, will step into a bigger role.
“We have relied on our depth all year long and we are going to have to rely on that tomorrow (Friday) night.”
The winner advances to the championship game Sunday at 6 p.m.
