Fort Wayne Mad Ants 127, Raptors 905 125 | Box Score
How you feel about Thursday’s game depends a great deal on how you viewed it, how you view the D-League in general, how much rope you’re willing to give young NBA players on assignment, and, well, how much you care about defense. Because if you care even the slightest bit about stopping an opposition, Thursday’s game was not for you – even I scored four points on two-of-three shooting.
That’s an exaggeration, but consider that Raptors 905 scored 125 points and lost. The game was played at a fast pace – I estimate about 106 possessions – but that’s hardly enough of a factor to justify giving up 127 points to a 17-21 Fort Wayne Mad Ants squad.
The Mad Ants shot 47.7 percent from the floor, hit 14-of-25 on threes, and went 31-of-35 at the line, turning around a slow first quarter to score 32 or more in each of the next three. That mark from outside might be considered an unseasonably warm shooting night, but a fair number of those threes were of the wide-open variety. The 905 failed to track trailers in transition, struggled with the pick-and-pop game as Fort Wayne looked to stretch the floor opposite a Lucas Nogueira-Sim Bhullar frontcourt – something neither was game for – and gambled off of corner shooters to send oft-unnecessary help toward the paint.
A team shooting 88.6 percent at the charity stripe is moderately unfortunate, but there’s an easy counter to that: Don’t send them to the line 35 times. It’s simplistic, but the 905 were very much guilty of guarding drives, particularly on the baseline, with their hands rather than their feet. A few players had solid defensive nights – Ashton Smith brought a good energy off the bench in spot minutes and Norman Powell was mostly effective, but it was a pretty abhorrent team effort on that end of the floor overall.
Whittington got the easiest 16 points of his life, hitting 4-of-8 on threes and 4-of-8 on open threes. Terran Petteway had his way trailing the play late and either catching and firing or attacking sleepy defenders quickly on his way to 30 points on 16 field-goal attempts. And Rakeem Christmas had a steady diet of free-throw line jumpers and free throws for 15 points.
It was also incredibly uncharacteristic. The 905 have clawed their way to above-average on defense despite leading the league in turnover rate by a substantial margin. Miscues have often been the team’s Achilles’ heel, leading to too many transition opportunities and an ability to get their quality half-court defense set. They protected the ball well by their standards Thursday, coughing it up just 13 times, with only five of those coming on live balls (Bhullar had a strangely sloppy night, giving up possession six times). The 905 also took care of the glass extremely well, corralling 38 of 44 defensive rebounding opportunities and earning a plus-16 edge on the glass overall.
So this defensive effort can be hung on the offense as it can on occasion. The 905 were just really bad on defense.
And that’s really disappointing, because had they defended even moderately well, they could have blown Fort Wayne off the floor, and we’d have a lot more positives to talk about. We can still talk about them, because in the D-League, there are always positives to be drawn at the individual level, so long as nobody assumes gaudy stat lines are indicative of great outings.
Except in the case of Powell, who continues to show he’s simply too good for this level. That’s not to say he shouldn’t get sent to Mississauga, because right now he’s buried in the Toronto Raptors’ rotation due to fit and guard depth. Getting the opportunity to play 40 minutes is important for conditioning, and how well that development time has helped his game off the bounce is well-established. That ability to attack was on full display Thursday, as Powell set a franchise record with 36 points, doing so on 15-of-27 shooting.
Drawing that attention also helped him create for others, taking over the de facto point-guard duties for stretches from Shannon Scott (12 assists). Powell had six dimes, several of them of the highlight variety, and there were a couple of other occasions where teammates fumbled his passes or made the extra pass. Most encouraging was that Powell only committed one turnover, something that had been an issue as his ball-handling workload picked up in previous stints.
He also pulled in 12 rebounds, because 36-and-6 doesn’t pop quite like 36-12-6.
Joining Powell with a strong offensive night was Bruno Caboclo, who was spitting napalm from outside. The Brazilian Kevin Durant looked the part, hitting 5-of-7 from downtown and 10-of-17 overall for 29 points, chipping in 11 rebounds for good measure. He made a couple of mistakes defensively and was very eager to hand-check, but his offensive game was really encouraging. He shot decisively, he attacked fluidly off the catch, and he continues to show moderate improvements week by week.
Nogueira was the third Raptor on assignment, and he started the night incredibly hot. Head coach Jesse Mermuys was unhappy with his defense at the power forward position, though Nogueira was willing to chalk it up to a learning experience and an opportunity to get better. Brazilian David Robinson shot 8-of-13, almost entirely around the rim except for a missed early-clock three, finishing with 18 points and nine rebounds. He grew frustrated at one point, committing one of his three turnovers and then fouling the other way, slamming the ball afterward and receiving a technical for his outburst.
It was a disappointing showing for Nogueira, considering he provided the Raptors with quality minutes on Wednesday night. Head coach Dwane Casey is sure to get the feedback report, and he won’t be pleased with Nogueira’s defensive effort. Still, given the psychological barrier of being sent down right after contributing and then heading back to the bench, opting to take more positive from Wednesday than negative from Thursday would be entirely justified. And Nogueira still did a lot of things well Thursday, he just wasn’t at his sharpest.
Bhullar continued his run of double-doubles with a 20-and-11 night but was mostly terrible on the defensive end and the starting lineup performed better when he went to the bench in favor of Scott Suggs (14 points on 16 shots) or even Keanau Post.
The 905 were dealt a pretty bad hand for this one, to be entirely fair. Ronald Roberts and DeAndre Daniels remain injured. Axel Toupane and Greg Smith just got called up to the NBA. Nogueira and Powell hadn’t been with the team in over a month. That’s a whole lot of change in one fell swoop, and had the game been lost due to errors or miscommunication or general disfunction, that would have been understandable.
To a man, though, everyone seemed to think the loss hung on effort and focus. It made for perhaps the most disappointed Mermuys has been after a loss, and it made it tough to focus on the non-Powell positives. There’s always Saturday.
