Raptors 905 team effort make dramatic comeback win possible

On a SLOB play in the second quarter, A.J. Lawson got caught on a screen. David Roddy switched and the refs deemed the latter’s shot contest unnecessarily aggressive, calling a flagrant foul.

Raptors 905 head coach Drew Jones yelled at Lawson from the sidelines.  “AJ, wake up! You gotta handle that shit!” Lawson rolled his eyes with a look of shame and embarrassment the way kids do when scolded by their parents. 

But Lawson would heed his coach’s plea, who remained loud and vocal throughout the game, with a steal and transition dunk in the third. His fast-break lay-up tied the game at 123 after AJ Hoggard picked James Akinjo’s pocket.

Lawson fouled Akinjo on the other end with about three seconds left. It seemed like all the prior effort would be nullified. Akinjo missed his first free throw, but hit his second. The 905 took a timeout and tried to lob an alley-oop to Olivier Sarr who miraculously drew the shooting foul. Sarr is an average free throw shooter, but hit both in an arena so quiet you could hear broadcasters Randy Urban and Warren Ward speaking live from the sidelines.

The 905 are up one point and the Grand Rapids Gold inbound the ball. Akinjo has the moves of a wide receiver in the Super Bowl to shake off Alijah Martin, gets the ball, and a great look at the 3. Clank. The 905 narrowly escape with a 125-124 win over the Gold.

The two-ways, Lawson and Martin, had 18 points each and assignment player Jonathan Mogbo had 11. The 905’s best players seemed lack their desired impact amid a plethora of fouls and timeouts that made the game feel like a chess match. 

They struggled to contain the biggest piece on the floor: a 7-foot-2 Moses Brown who has played 163 NBA games. No 905 player could stop him. He scored on Mogbo and Julian Reese at will. He shot a perfect 7-for-7 in the second quarter and finished the game with 37 points on 16-for-21 shooting. The 905 were down bad as much as 15 points in the second quarter.

But a collective effort in the second half led to their eventual comeback victory. 

Martin hit two triples in the third, one that helped the 905 inch within 3. He had 10 points in the fourth – a big 3 to inch within one point and completed an and-one to tie the game. Poor defence on Akinjo at the end, but thank the basketball gods.

Mogbo had nine points in the third quarter, one where he hit a triple to bail Jarkel Joiner out when he had nowhere to go at the end of the third frame. He also came up with a ‘I-can-be-like-Chris-Boucher-too’ 3-point block late in the game that led to a bucket on the other end.  

Joiner displayed valiant effort yesterday throughout the game. He forced a miss in the second quarter, leading to David Roddy’s triple, which forced a Gold timeout. In the third, he became Coleman Hawkins’ nightmare. Joiner snagged a forced kickout pass by Hawkins as he tried to save the ball from going out of bounds. Joiner pushed the ball like he was a track athlete competing for LA 2026. Easy bucket but no foul. Pissed, he put the clamps on Hawkins in the backcourt. The taller Hawkins didn’t have the handles to break Joiner down and the ball was turned over. Joiner gave the 905 a boost when they needed it the most.

Roddy led the 905 in scoring with 26 points, shooting 4-for-6 on 3s and shot 9-for-11 from the field. His 3 balls kept the 905 in the game, hitting two 3s in the fourth. Martin snaked off Sarr’s screen, drew two, kicked the ball out to Sarr at the top of the arc. Swing, swing to the corner. Roddy splashed the triple to make it a six-point game. And he splashed another one to inch within two points with less than two minutes left. He had a put-back before to give the 905 a one-point lead. “I didn’t call one play for D. Rod,” Jones said to Lindsay Dunn post-game. “26 points, right?” he commended Roddy for knowing how to play the right way by starring in his role.

Lastly, Hoggard had 14 points on 5-for-9 shooting including the massive defensive play at the end. He continues to remain solid in transition offence. In the second quarter, he pushed the pace and got a bucket, and then switched it up by pushing, surveying the floor, and hitting Sarr inside. Jones said that we all know what Hoggard can do offensively, but “defensively, can he draw that line in the stand for us? And he did that today.”  

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