Photo by MattAzevedo.com
Raptors 905 106, Salt Lake City Stars 112 | Box Score
Assignees: Bruno Caboclo (905), Brice Johnson (Stars, via Clippers)
Give Raptors 905 this: They never, ever quit. Head coach Jerry Stackhouse has them playing hard consistently, and even on nights when every sign suggests they don’t have it, that their shots just aren’t there, that fatigue is setting in, they continue fighting. There haven’t been a lot of losses to see this in, really, and the 905 are often on the good side of substantial leads and the closeouts, annoying or smooth, that follow. When the script has been flipped, they’ve shown they still know how to dig deep, even if doing so sees them come up a little short.
That was the story Friday night as a tired 905 club closed out a five-game, 10-day west coast road trip in Salt Lake City, falling 112-106 to the Stars.
To say Stackhouse’s club came out flat would be a bit of an understatement. In a blink, they found themselves in a 14-5 hole, and while Edy Tavares stroking from mid-range lent optimism their luck would change, it would not. As the Stars expanded their lead, the 905 continued to show their trademark effort, often for naught. E.J. Singler hit the floor for a loose ball in the second, taking what looked like a painful fall on his right side. Scrambles on the offensive glass produced additional chances, only for the ensuing shots to miss, and those misses left the team out of sorts and gassed getting back in transition defense.
Midway through the second, the Stars had pushed the lead to 27. It would stay at 21 at half, briefly stretched to 27 again, and sat at 20 entering the fourth. The 905’s late push to end the third quarter would have looked like a sign of life had it not seemed too late, and had every piece of logic and circumstance not suggested there wouldn’t be enough left in the tank.
There wouldn’t be, but the quarter that followed, even in leading to a second consecutive loss for the team, showed why the 905 should be considered championship contenders even as they stumbled. Led by Antwaine Wiggins shooting 5-of-5 in the quarter to finish with 18 points on perfect shooting from the floor, the 905 began coming back. They chipped away a little, and then a little more. The defense locked in, forcing seven fourth-quarter turnovers. C.J. Leslie added nine points after a slow start. Brady Heslip kept missing from outside. (Okay, that didn’t help, but even on a 4-of-16 night from long-range, Heslip shooting is your best bet to cut a lead quickly.) And the team finally started taking care of their own glass, grabbing 12 of their 28 defensive rebounds on the night.
The lead was at 15 after three minutes of action. Will Sheehey hit a triple to cut the lead to 10 at the two-minute mark, seemingly too late but not at all impossible with 17 points already shaved off. When they finally cut it to five in the closing seconds, there wasn’t enough time to close the gap further. That’s unfortunate, but it doesn’t negate that they trimmed a 27-point lead to a five-point one in barely a quarter. Even against a bad team, that kind of fight, late in an arduous road trip, in a game that doesn’t mean a whole lot to the 905 in the grand scheme – they’d like home court throughout the playoffs, sure – they should resiliency, fight, and guts.
If it seems somewhat unlike me to point to these intangible elements, given how I normally operate, that’s because it is, admittedly, a bit out of character. At this point in the season, though, there’s not a whole lot to learn about the 905 on the court. They are good. They are deep. They are well-coached. They are, on balance, one of the three most talented and effective teams in the D-League. What’s going to determine their success in the odd, three-round, best-of-three D-League playoffs is their ability to maximize every moment, to let no game slip away, and to respond to adversity with urgency and immediacy. In that sense, here, eight games out from the playoffs, Salt Lake City provided the unlikeliest of tests. The 905 were found wanting, and there’s little reason to feel good about falling so far behind in the first place. But what happened over 14 minutes or so could be instructive a month from now.
Or maybe I’m just glad they survived the road trip.
Notes
- Bruno Caboclo returned from a one-game absence due to a shoulder injury but played just 22 minutes, and none in the fourth quarter. He did not look very comfortable, shooting 1-of-9 from the floor and playing to a minus-11 mark. It’s hard to discern a root cause here beyond just a bad game, because he rebounded aggressively and showed no signs of hesitation with his shoulder.
- Yanick Moreira sat this one out with flu-like symptoms, necessitating some smaller looks throughout (C.J. Leslie and Christian Watford worked as the de facto backup centers, a major necessity because Edy Tavares played just 19 minutes despite shooting 7-of-9 from the floor). Must have been that Salt Lake City nightlife that did him in.
- C.J. Leslie’s hair probably looks better to some with the really tight braid he had previously – I’m here for braids and rows making a more large-scale comeback – but his new, freer look (a kind of messy, flattened-out high-top) is a good one. His second-half response after a shaky first was terrific.
- Sundiata Gaines plays for the Stars. It honestly feels like Gaines was the first-ever D-League call-up (he wasn’t), as he got the nod way back in 2009. He’s also somehow just 30! He had a cup of coffee with the Raptors back in 2010-11, appearing in six games and averaging nearly six points. Go look at some of the names the Raptors had on the team that year. Ridiculous. Don’t you ever forget how good Raptors fans have it right now.
- The 905 are short on home games once they’re back off of this trip, but if you wanted to attend Monday’s game at the Air Canada Centre, or March 18 and 30 at Hershey Centre, you can go to this link and use the promo code REPUBLIC905 for a discount. And yes, that’s it for home games. They’ve already played 22. Not that the road-heavy end to the season should scare them given their 15-2 record away from home so far.
