Raptors 905 99, Canton Charge 109 | Box Score
Assignees: Fred VanVleet, Bruno Caboclo (905), None (Charge)
After things went about as well as they could have hoped to start the season, Raptors 905 are facing some serious adversity. One of the hottest starts in the league has dissipated, and the 905 now find themselves looking for answers to a three-game losing streak. That might not sound like the best situation to be in midway through the year, but head coach Jerry Stackhouse doesn’t seem all that concerned following a tough loss to the Canton Charge.
“Keep grinding,” he said after the game. “It’s a good test for us. Things kinda came easier for us at the beginning of the season, and now you really find out what your team’s made of.”
The 905 and Charge got out to an even start, trading 3-pointers on their respective opening possessions, with Bruno Caboclo answering an early salvo from Chris Evans. That seemed to get Caboclo in a groove from the outset, and he’d add a nice cutting volley-lob, a pair of heads-up steals, and a beautiful tip-in on his way to a plus-21 mark in the first half. He’d wind up with a plus-14 with nine points and eight rebounds, though he’d go cold later in the game and finish 3-of-10. The rest of the team didn’t have quite that same opening flow, with the 905 only able to build a small lead in the early going. Some familiar turnover and fouling issues reared their head to keep the Charge close despite a poor shooting mark, and a strong offensive quarter produced only a five-point lead at its conclusion.
Things started to look dire as Stackhouse turned to his bench, normally a strength, in the second quarter. Some unsustainable shot-making for Canton and defensive breakdowns for the 905 resulted in a ludicrous 20-4 Charge run over the opening 3:40 of the frame. Suddenly down 11 when they were in control a split-second earlier, the 905 answered back, and the returns of Caboclo and Antwaine Wiggins helped key a 16-4 run for the 905 in response. With Edy Tavares cleaning up around the rim with 15 points on 5-of-5 shooting in the half (he’d finish with 21 points and 10 rebounds), Wiggins and Will Sheehey proving to be problems in transition, and Caboclo and Fred VanVleet joining them with some great defensive intensity had the 905 leading 58-51 as the halftime buzzer sounded.
The third quarter took all of my willpower to not just fire off a bunch of Chris Evans jokes (they just write themselves and would be a…perfect score for a tired beat writer), as the Charge forward poured in 15 of his 24 points. Evans, the lightning-quick Quinn Cook (who finished with 35), and the versatile John Holland (27) kept the 905 defense on their toes. The offense, meanwhile, wasn’t quite up to the challenge of keeping pace, with the 905 continuing to struggle from long-range on this homestand despite starting it off among the league’s best 3-point shooting teams. In a tight, those quick droughts or runs can change the accounting quickly, and the Charge found themselves ahead by three entering the fourth.
“Their guys stepped up. They got aggressive, got really aggressive offensively, jumped up and made some shots on us,” Stackhouse said.
The cold shooting got a quick reprieve early in the fourth as Brady Heslip nailed a pull-up three, his first triple of the game, but it didn’t ignite the second unit. Stackhouse went back to the assignment players and his most consistent pieces earlier on, Wiggins and Tavares, to try to wrestle the game back midway through the frame. A timeout with 7:42 to play and the 905 down seven felt like a potential make-or-break time in the game, and Heslip coming out of the timeout with a forearm shiver to get whistled for an offensive foul was hardly what the 905 needed. Stackhouse continued to tinker to try to get more play-making on the floor at the expense of Heslip’s shooting, and the defense dialed back in to try to buy some extra possessions to come back in.
It wasn’t meant to be from there, though. A huge dunk from Evans and a VanVleet turnover leading to a Cook transition bucket pushed the lead back to eight, and while VanVleet responded with a triple, a Tavares travel on an offensive rebound a few plays later more or less ended it. The Charge slowed it down and closed out from there, topping the 905 109-99 to hand a home team that once owned the league’s best record their third consecutive loss.
Dropping another game at home somewhat curiously takes the 905 down to 7-7 at home, with a perfect 5-0 mark on the road. Maybe leaving Hershey Centre is what the 905 need, but wherever they find it, they need to do something about an offense that remains frigid from long-range and continues to turn the ball over a great deal. Stackhouse isn’t worried about the shooting given the looks they’re getting (they were 4-of-18 on threes), but the ball control is a big of a concern.
“We had some looks. We had the looks that we liked. We were swinging the ball, doing exactly what we wanted to do…If we can continue to get those looks, we’ll be fine,” he said. “We had some unforced turnovers. The live-ball, unforced turnovers really hurt us…We gotta find a way to clean that up.”
The 905 have but a day to regroup ahead of a tough road-road back-to-back on the weekend. The last time they stumbled at home and then hit the road, they responded quite emphatically, quickly turning the corner from their first rut of the year. Their ability to do so will say a fair amount about what kind of team they are.
“Bad teams crumble when a little adversity hits. Good teams find a way to survive it. Really, really good teams, great teams, find a way to improve in adverse times,” Stackhouse said. “I think we’ve got a really, really good team and we’ll find a way to come out of it.”
Thanks to Navid Shahabadi for the highlight package.
Notes
- I’d expect VanVleet to be recalled after this game, as the 905 are going to be out of town, and he generally hasn’t traveled with them. The Raptors play at home Thursday and have a back-to-back Saturday and Sunday, so they’ll likely prefer to have VanVleet with the parent club. As always, it could go either way with Caboclo, who needs the reps but would leave the Raptors with just 11 healthy bodies if he accompanied the 905 on their trip. The guess here is that both get recalled. (It’s possible they get recalled after 905 practice tomorrow, though, as the Raptors aren’t doing a shootaround in the morning.)
- VanVleet looked a little gassed after just getting in from San Antonio this afternoon, committing four turnovers and shooting 5-of-17 from the floor. He was solid defensively and still put himself and teammates in good positions, it was just one of those days when it came to finishing around the rim. That’s an area for improvement, but this seemed like more of a rust/fatigue-shaking game than a serious concern.
- Stackhouse is figuring out more and more ways to make the most out of Tavares on offense. He’s obviously a problem on tip-ins around the rim and as a screener, but Tavares is growing more comfortable working dribble handoffs around the perimeter and engaging in some two-man action in the post. One possession in the third quarter stands out, where VanVleet threw a post-entry to Tavares, who sent a touch pass to Negus Webster-Chan, and then the two immediately engaged in a low pick-and-roll that led to a thunderous Tavares hammer. He’s a lot of fun.
- Axel Toupane sat due to an illness. That’s normally a big loss for the 905, taking away their best perimeter defender and a secondary playmaker, but the assignments help. He’s averaging 15.6 points on 62.6-percent true-shooting, with 3.1 assists and terrific defense across three, and sometimes four, positions. He’s as big a piece as this team can lose, game-to-game.
- Jarrod Uthoff drew a DNP-CD, which was interesting.
- The 905 now head out on the road for two games before returning home next Tuesday. If you want to check that game – or any game – out live, 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.
