River Lions in driver’s seat
The suddenly red-hot Niagara River Lions continued to roll Tuesday night in Scarborough.
Facing the defending champion Shooting Stars in Canadian Elite Basketball League action, Niagara built quarter leads of 19-18, 51-36 and 73-49 en route to an impressive 98-77 victory.
It was Niagara’s third straight win following a lacklustre road trip.
“Tonight was an excellent win,” Raso said. “It was a big spot for us and we got a very good performance. We defended really well and we didn’t rebound well in the first quarter and then we turned that around. Khalil Ahmad was fantastic and Aaryn Rai was fantastic and we stuck to what we do well and played good basketball.”
Niagara has been dominant in each of the last three games.
“I am proud but we have had moments this year where we have been on a bit of a roller coaster so our challenge is to embrace it, make sure we are constantly playing good basketball and that we are not playing down to anybody,” Raso said.
Niagara’s coach and GM wants his squad to practise like it had lost it previous game and not get comfortable.
“That where the maturity is and reflecting back and reminding those guys that when you win a lot you can get complacent. When you lose, you snap back to reality. Winners can snap back to reality after wins, not hold on to the highs of the wins and stay neutral as possible.”
With TJ Lall banged up and unavailable and Omari Moore at NBA Summer League with the Toronto Raptors, Niagara played with only eight players Tuesday night. Lall is expected back for Thursday’s home game versus the Montreal Alliance.
“We were undermanned coming into this one but we played really well. We had the performance we needed in this spot because this was a huge game for us in the standings.”
A loss and Scarborough and Niagara would have been tied with six losses and the Shooting Stars would have owned the tiebreaker. Now at 10-5 to Scarborough’s 7-7, the River Lions hold the tiebreaker and are 2.5 games up on the Shooting Stars for the conference lead.
“It puts us in the driver’s seat to finish first in the conference,” Raso said.
With the Montreal Alliance earning a spot in the CEBL Final Four as host, the winner of the conference gets a first-round bye and hosts the semifinals.
“That is really important because this Scarborough team will be much better by the time playoffs come around in terms of its roster and they will be a very good basketball team and a tough one to beat,” he said. “Playing that game at home is huge.”
Scarborough has four players away at NBA Summer League.
“They will be a much different team that they were tonight and they added some guys in. When we played them earlier, they didn’t have Cat Barber and Aaron Best and those guys played tonight. Those are very good basketball players. They weren’t at full strength but neither were we.”
Top performers for Niagara against Scarborough were: Ahmad with 25 points, seven assists and four steals; Rai with 20 points, nine rebounds and six assists; Jahvon Blair and Nathan Cayo with 15 points each; Elijah Lufile with nine points and eight boards; and, Louden Love with eight points and 13 rebounds.
Leading scorers for the Shooting Stars were Barber (16), Jalen Ataway (14), Devoe Joseph (14) and Best (11).
Game time Thursday is 7 p.m.
Visit www.riverlions.ca/tickets for more information.
