If there was ever a time you absolutely had to tune in to a Raptors 905 game, it was last night. 5,314 fans turned up at the Hersey’s Center in Mississauga to witness big highlights from Bruno Caboclo, Anthony Bennett, Shannon Scott, and Ronald Roberts Jr.
After fighting through a sluggish start, the 905 grew as the game went on, eventually opening up a 29-point lead early in the fourth quarter. They got to the line 32 times and made 29 of their free throws – pretty good compared to the Knicks who went 11-17 from the line. Defensively, there were some horrific collapses which I’ll touch on below, but overall it improved enough over the course of 48 minutes to get a lot of stops. The perimeter defense particularly improved in the third quarter where the 905 held the Knicks to 19 points. Up until mid-way through the third quarter, they had also held the Knicks to just 4.3% from behind the arc. No, that’s not a typo. The final stat: 12% (3-of-26).
The story of the first half was Anthony Bennett and the story of the game was Delon Wright, but the best player was Bruno Caboclo. To elaborate, while Bennett and Wright both had the highest scoring outputs on the team – 19 and 20 points respectively – their overall game wasn’t nearly as impressive as Bruno’s who quietly put together a really composed and matured game.
Bennett erupted in the first half, scoring in a variety of ways. His power dunks are nothing new to Canadians (check Vine below), and his mid-range game was looking really good. The Knicks weren’t paying much attention to him on the perimeter, and Bennett was able to either take open threes, or dribble down to the mid-range and sink in jumpers – something he did really well in the first quarter. But still, while he has some exciting moments where you can clearly tell he’s talented, Bennett does things that make you shake your head. On one drive, he casually took it to the basket, palming the ball with his left hand looking for a dunk and getting blocked pretty easily. He also went 2/6 from three and 6/16 from the floor.
Probably his best attribute in this game was his pure aggressiveness. It would be a lie to say this wasn’t one of the better versions of Anthony Bennett in some time.
Delon Wright was a huge part of the offense, and he did a solid job orchestrating things. First out of the way, what he struggled with – defensive rotations (he gambled a lot), shooting (5/12 from the floor), and dribbling his way into trouble (getting into tight spaces and running out of options). Here’s what he did really well – get to the rim. Wright is really talented at getting to the rim in traffic and getting high-percentage looks while he’s inside. His brief highlight package from the game depicts his talent at getting to the rim pretty well.
Bruno was the cream of the crop, though. His 17 points seemed to get lost in the game – or maybe it didn’t, I’m not sure. Either way, it’s important to emphasis this performance because this was a really, really good version of Bruno. It’s not just about his efficient night from the floor (5/9), but for how patient and confident he looked. Nothing was rushed, he read the game really well on both ends of the floor, picked his spots, made the extra pass, got to the rim and finished in traffic, hit his open looks, and had a couple really nice blocks. Also, his defense was solid. He was extremely active in trying to stay in front of his man, alter shots (and block them), and cut off passing lanes.
Ronald Roberts Jr turned in another solid performance too. He’s a walking double-double this season, and last night was no exception as he grabbed a game-high 12 rebounds to go along with his 15 points. He did struggle a bit in the mid-range game though, which is something he won’t be happy about. His mid-range jumper is one thing the NBA scouts really want to see him improve on.
Undoubtedly, the four aforementioned players are the ones of most interest to Raptor fans, as the 905 is basically built for them (and Bebe / Daniels who didn’t suit up), so those are the players we’ll emphasize. In other news, Shannon Scott was a defensive nightmare in the back-court. I was trying to think of a comparable NBA point guard who got abused so easily, and couldn’t. In relation, Jose Calderon looked like Gary Payton during his time here. Harsh as it may be to grade a 23-year-old D-League player still in development that way, but the reality is that Scott needs to improve dramatically on this end to have any shot in the NBA. One too many times he was completely lost in the defensive set and his man-to-man defense was even worse. Knicks’ reserve guard Jordan Crawford pretty well got anything he wanted against Scott.
But hey, he did have the highlight of the night which brought the house down – hitting a contested three from half-court at the buzzer to give the 905 a 13-point lead at the half.
The third quarter is where the 905 really put this game to bed. They out-scored the Knicks 28-19 in that frame. A huge key to this was improved perimeter defense and improved ball movement – the 905 looked stagnant offensively at times in the first quarter but the offensive flow clearly improved as the game went on. They also really took care of the basketball (1 turnover in that quarter). Overall, the 905 turned the ball over 12 times – half of which came from Axel Toupane who also went 2-10 from the field.
The 905 now move to 6-18 on the season, sitting dead last in the league, but this game should make fans excited about the potential of the four aforementioned players, and particularly, in Bruno Caboclo.
Next up: @Iowa on Monday.
