Raptors 905 132, Delaware 87ers 127 | Box Score
To get a feel for Friday’s Raptors 905 game, it’s probably only necessary to watch a single GIF. These are some of Ronald Roberts’ dunks as of the mid-way point of the third quarter against the Delaware 87ers.
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It was that kind of a night for the 87ers defense, who conceded the paint and the rim for the bulk of 48 minutes. The 905 weren’t necessarily much better on defense, accepting the torrid pace Delaware was pushing, but their offensive execution made up the difference. The end result was the 905 setting a new franchise-best with 132 points while shooting 56 percent from the floor.
The night had more bests, as Roberts wound up with a career-high 21 rebounds, 18 of them on the defensive glass. He added 27 points on 13-of-19 shooting, and the 905 have to be crossing their fingers that the hip injury that cost him a few minutes of the fourth quarter is a minor one. Of course, the team’s lone All-Star may not be long for the D-League, anyway. That short stint on the bench may have cost him a chance at D-League history, as his 27-and-21 came in just 31 minutes, and he would have had a reasonable shot at Jack Cooley’s 29-rebound league record. It was a ludicrous outing, the latest in a long string of them.
What Roberts can do against lesser forwards at this level seems unfair at times, and if he can continue to flash the 18-footer and provide solid defense, even against bigger opposition, there will continue to be fewer and fewer reasons for a team not to call him up.
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Roberts wasn’t the only one showing out in the team’s sixth consecutive victory, either. Shannon Scott dished a career-high 11 assists, Axel Toupane continues his recent run of excellent offensive play (21 points and eight assists), and Scott Suggs showed why he was chosen for the All-Star 3-Point Shootout, hitting triples in triplicate on his way to 24 points.
What’s encouraging for the 905 is that they’ve put together this winning streak without major contributions from players on assignment from the Toronto Raptors. The up-and-down has continued, and the assignees have played substantial minutes when assigned, but it’s been the core group of regulars doing the lion’s share of the work.
Perhaps that’s not surprising. It’s that same group that endured a nine-game losing streak without reprieve and that felt the momentum of increasingly better losses near a crescendo at the D-League Showcase. It’s a credit to that group – namely Scott, Suggs, Toupane, and Roberts, with contributions from the newly-acquired Greg Smith and the surging Sim Bhullar – that they’ve weathered the discomfort of role uncertainty and instability, and that they’ve been able to build a chemistry within an ever-changing roster. Every D-League team faces those challenges, but the Raptors have been among the most aggressive organizations in shuttling players up and down, and the 905 are an expansion team that had less than two weeks of training camp together, without several key pieces.
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Suggs and head coach Jesse Mermuys have talked a lot about this young, inexperienced team learning to win. Winning isn’t the endgame for a D-League team, but mounting losses can take their toll, and wins are important to provide positive reinforcement that the process is working. Over the six-game winning streak, the 905 have not only played better and taken advantage of a series of opponents closer to .500 than their five-times-in-three-weeks bully Sioux Falls, they’ve also been able to eradicate any residual concerns about losing games a certain way. The same situations have presented themselves, and the 905 have avoided repeating mistakes.
Building a big lead and blowing it? Check.
Going toe-to-toe and failing to execute down the stretch? Done.
Handing a game away with turnovers that lead to a big run? Yup.
On Friday, the 905 found themselves in a quick, early hole, something that hadn’t happened much of late. It took all of a quarter for them to flip a 10-point deficit into a 10-point lead. The 87ers chipped back away at it, even taking a lead back late in the third, but the 905 locked in and closed it out.
It wasn’t their most impressive win on the streak, facing a Delaware team that just lost Sean Kilpatrick and Jordan McRae to call-ups and still managed 33 free-throw attempts and 127 points. Still, it’s a win against the last team to beat them, and fouling too freely was really the only major issue. Delaware shot 44 percent from the floor and 11-of-33 on threes, with the 905 doing a nice job closing out on the threes they sometimes welcome in order to seal off the rim. Delaware grabbed 12 offensive rebounds to create some second chance points, which is going to happen when a team misses 55 shots from the field and still represents a low percentage.
The 905 took care of their own rim, took care of their own glass, and once again, the only thing they didn’t take care of other than Russ Smith (38 points, 16 of them at the line) was the ball. They committed 16 turnovers, which really allowed Delaware to dictate the pace and strained the defense some, handing the 87ers 24 easy points. But hey, if it’s going to lead to Bhullar transition blocks, keep them coming.
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From the Raptors’ perspective, Friday was a mixed bag. The team opted to only assign two players, Bruno Caboclo and Anthony Bennett, and both came off the bench to play only half the game. Bennett’s workload may be a conditioning matter or a game-flow thing, with the team’s other three bigs playing so well, and Caboclo fouled out in 24 minutes (with 3:32 to play).
When they were on the court, they both played fine, if unspectacularly. Bennett was less eager to shoot than in previous trips, shooting 4-of-7 for 11 points, five rebounds, and two steals. He was active defensively and the team played well with him at the four. The primary issue right now is that he should probably be focused on driving and spotting up, not shooting off-dribble twos, though he continues to flash a really nice step-back.
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Caboclo was a little less involved in the offense, functioning primarily as a spot-up shooter. He hit 2-of-4 from outside for eight points and did well crashing the defensive glass from the wing, pulling in five rebounds. He even helped toward the team’s 74 points in the paint, recovering a tough feed on a cut for a basket inside.
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It’s a little strange how focus has changed during the winning streak. When the team was losing, the attention naturally fell to the silver livings coming from the performances of the assignees. With the D-League regulars now in a groove, the assignees are rendered a part of the whole instead. That says a lot about the regulars, about the willingness of the players on assignment to be good team players, and on the entire organization for making those transitions easy.
That’s not to say the players on assignment aren’t the top priority. They are, and none have been benched or had their roles fundamentally changed in response to D-Leagues finding chemistry. Nor do the wins mean “it’s working” any more than the losses meant it wasn’t. The focus remains on the long-term, but like with the parent club’s 10-game winning streak, it’s fine, even encouraged, to take a step back and appreciate what’s happening on this run.
