Raptors 905 87, Grand Rapids Drive 114 | Box Score
Assignees: Fred VanVleet, Bruno Caboclo (905), None (Drive)
Right before Christmas, a record number of children would have been sent home from the Air Canada Centre disappointed on Tuesday, were they not primarily invested in cheering any basket for either side. The D-league record 15,011 on hand got plenty of buckets, they just mostly came for the visiting Grand Rapids Drive rather than Raptors 905, as the Drive unleashed a storm from long-range from buzzer to buzzer on their way to a 114-87 victory.
And, of course, it wouldn’t be the holidays without a little Steezus, the reason for the steezon.
Things started out more or less fine. Bruno Caboclo canned an early three to send the raucous young crowd into a post-recess frenzy, Edy Tavares converted an offensive rebound into a bucket, then fed Caboclo on a baseline cut, and C.J. Leslie capped a spirited performance from the starters by putting a pair of Drive defenders in the blender for a bucket in the post. The Drive punched back at every turn, mostly thanks to Kevin Murphy’s 14 first-quarter points, and neither team could sustain a major run. As the frame came to a close, E.J. Singler hit his first of two triples of the night out of a spacey two-man game with Brady Heslip, giving the 905 a 26-24 lead.
“I thought we were OK in the beginning of the game and kinda matched them in the first quarter,” head coach Jerry Stackhouse said after the game. “Then they kinda took off.”
Take off is an understatement.
The second quarter brought Jordan Crawford with it, and to put it succinctly, Steezus Walks. Crawford hit two threes and a long step-back two the span of 78 seconds, helping the Drive wrestle control of the game. Ray McCallum capped an extended 16-5 run by pulling up for a three in transition, then holding his position along the arc as the ball bounced four times off the rim before finally dropping. The 905 tried to fight back, cutting the lead to three when Tavares unexpectedly closed out above the 3-point line, blocking a shot and keying a Fred VanVleet transition bucket. Naturally, Crawford canned another step-back and then a three almost immediately afterward, and the lead was pushed to 11.
That edge would swell to 17 by the end of the half, with the Drive’s 61-44 advantage threatening to put an energetic crowd in a lull that not even the Dab Cam or Juju On That Beat could drag them out of. After Murphy’s 14 in the first, Crawford dropped 15 in the second, and the Drive took a 54.8-percent mark from the floor into the break.
“Some of those shots were horrible shots,” VanVleet said. “I think early on a couple of their guys got a rhythm and maybe we made some errors early and gave them some free looks. And once you give some of those guys with no conscience a couple, can see the ball go in a few times, then they start shooting the crazy ones. And they were going in tonight.”
And they just kept going in.
Axel Toupane joined the children in getting a sugar high that would make Coyote Shivers blush at halftime, and after the Drive pushed their lead to 20, the 905 defense made a last-ditch effort to lock in. Toupane took a steal the other way for a bucket on back-to-back possessions, and then VanVleet got into the act with a steal of his own. Caboclo looked to make an impact, too, saving an offensive rebound, then forcing a jump-ball on a defensive possession in the paint. Unfortunately, the fleetingly active defense was slow to actually trim the lead, as the 905 offense remained wanting to the tune of a 41.2-percent clip from the floor and nine turnovers in the third quarter.
The quarter ended in a fashion nearly as indicative of the entire feel of the game as McCallum’s earlier shooter’s roll, with Crawford hitting a ridiculously deep three that cause him to look down and appreciate where he was after it splashed through the net. By the end of the game, the Drive had hit a ludicrous 24-of-48 on threes, Crawford finished with 40 points, and the 905 had to choice but to shrug their shoulders and tip their caps.
“Guys made 24 threes. It’s hard to beat any team that makes them,” Stackhouse said. “When you have a team that shoots it as well as they did – and I obviously haven’t seen the tape yet – there were only three that we really made some mistakes on, and the rest of them were just contested shots they jumped up and made. They have a couple of pros on that team, former pros that have been on an NBA team, and I think they saw an NBA arena and their eyes kinda lit up a bit. This team probably wouldn’t lose to many NBA teams tonight if they shot the ball this well again.”
The fourth played out more or less how most blowouts play out – the 905 tried to chip away, but the lead was simply too large, and the Drive were in such a groove that their counterpunches were effective in stretching that lead out even further. Every 905 bucket had an answer, and the Drive continued to hit degree-of-difficulty shots. That seemed to slow the 905 offense, too, with the transition game completely negated by pulling the ball out of the basket to start possessions.
Stackhouse warned before the game that the wins were nice but the team still had a ways to go before they’d consider themselves happy, and those comments proved prescient. He didn’t necessarily give an I-told-you-so afterward, but he seemed more at peace than maybe expected with some of the warning signs materializing in an ugly loss.
“I’ve kind of warned against this,” he said. Even though we’ve had some success in the standings, we haven’t really been as good as we need to be, as I see down the road, for where we wanna go…When we do it right, we’re pretty good. When we don’t do it right, we get lucky sometimes and still pretty good. That’s gonna hamper us long-term, big-picture, we gotta do things right a little more often.
“And I think the guys know that. That’s the good part about it. They know what they need to do.”
What, exactly, the 905 could do about an opponent shooting the lights out to this degree is probably a more philosophical basketball question than a schematic one. At 10-3, they remain in a really strong place, and there have been far more encouraging signs than discouraging ones. The 50-game slough may seem like less of a grind in the D-League than the NBA, but the learning curve is by necessity a lot more expedited and the growth more urgent. Cliche though it sounds, every loss is an opportunity to get better, and if this one helps reinforce Stackhouse’s message that there’s still work to be done despite the record, that’s a positive in the larger picture.
As for the Rapids, well, if variance is just (it is not), it will have it out for their shooters in the next meeting. If nothing else, the 905 will have it circled.
“I think we’ll remember this and we’ll see them again down the road,” Stackhouse said.
They won’t get the chance for revenge against the Drive until Jan. 18, and they won’t get to correct their ACC performance until March. Until then, there’s a back-to-back to deal with Thursday and Friday to head into the holidays on a merrier note.
Thanks to Navid Shahabadi for the highlight package.
Notes
- As mentioned, the 905 set a new D-League record for attendance with 15,011 at the Air Canada Centre for this one. Even with the ugly on-court loss, that’s a major victory for the organization, beating OKC’s previous record of 12,727 by quite a margin. From a business perspective, it’s a safe bet the 905 will also top the single-game revenue record, one they already own from last March’s game at the ACC.
- With the Raptors playing later today at the same arena, a handful of players popped their heads in to check out brief stretches of the game. That included DeMar DeRozan here bright and early to watch warmups, and Norman Powell, Lucas Nogueira, and Jared Sullinger (in a fun toque!) in the first quarter. Cory Joseph, Jakob Poeltl, Delon Wright, and Patrick Patterson joined later. (I may have missed the others, too, so please don’t take any exclusion as it being one player declining to cheer them on.) It continues to be awesome that the 905ers have so much support from the NBA side, and it doesn’t go unnoticed in the locker room.
- VanVleet and Caboclo both played 31 minutes. Both will be recalled after the game and be in uniform for the Raptors as they host the Brooklyn Nets tonight, meaning there’s an opportunity for them to play in a double-header. That’s something VanVleet told me he hasn’t done since at least high school or AAU ball, and he was excited to get more basketball in. They might not be needed much, especially if Cory Joseph is healthy enough to play, but a home game against the Nets at least suggests some blowout potential.
- Caboclo played well for the most part but put a transition layup over the backboard, which is the kind of ammunition those who have lost (or never had) faith in his development process are surely looking for.
- VanVleet was mostly solid, though he continues to struggle some finishing around the rim. He welcomes contact on his drives, looking to get to the line, and over a larger sample I’d expect the free-throw attempts to go up and his field-goal percentage in the paint to regress upward. He’s so steady running the offense and such an aggressive defender that he doesn’t even need to fill the stat-sheet to have an impact (though he was a team-worst minus-33 in this one, a reminder that one-game snapshots are imperfect).
- The 905 now return “home” to Mississauga to host Westchester on Thursday, a game that may not include any assignment players, as the Raptors are off to Utah for a Friday tip. If you want to check it out live, anyway – or check out the next Air Canada Centre game – you can go to this link and use the promo code REPUBLIC905 all season long, as the 905 are hooking RR readers up with discounted tickets.
