Raptors 905 end season with inconsistent first-round loss to Cruise

The Raptors 905’s first playoff game in four years felt both monumental and strangely insignificant. How often does a team make the playoffs and have to surrender their top scorer to be a bench piece on another team in a (relatively) less consequential game?

Only in the G League.

While they were missing the high-octane scoring punch of AJ Lawson, the 905 did have top talent in Trayce Jackson-Davis, Jonathan Mogbo and Alijah Martin available for the contest.

Still, it wasn’t enough as the 905’s inconsistent attention to detail on defence and failure to produce consistently good looks in the halfcourt was too tough a mountain to climb. They fell 120-105 to the Motor City Cruise on Tuesday at Paramount Fine Food Centre, ending their postseason after only one game.

It capped a tremendously successful season for the 905 that saw them start a G League record 16-0 and also finish a league-best 37-13 through all competition. The team stayed true to its demanding principles – dogged ball pressure and fast-paced offence – all season, and it paid dividends. Just not when it mattered most.

“It’s the first thing I said, I said ‘This loss doesn’t diminish what you guys accomplished this season,'” 905 head coach Drew Jones said after the loss. “As players, as men, as a team.”

“Absolute pleasure to coach. I’m hurt for them right now,” he added.

Jones has frequently harped on consistency this season. The discipline to make the right reads “every single time.” Such mental and physical fortitude is hard to quantify, but the inability to maintain it undoubtedly factored into the 905’s lapses late in the schedule and their ultimate demise against the Cruise.

The 905 fought tooth and nail down the stretch to secure home-court advantage for the one-and-done first-round playoff game. Considering they won 7-of-10, including a thriller over Motor City, and had a raucous crowd at their back, their was plenty of reason for optimism entering the contest.

But momentum in sports can be a divisive topic. Jones gave a measured answer on the subject pregame.

“The building won’t win you a playoff game. Your habits will.”

Considering the inertia the 905 came in with, and that this was their biggest game of the last four seasons, they came out surprisingly flat. They made two giveaways to start – a jumped pass coming off a pin down and a Jarkel Joiner dribble off his leg under duress. Alijah Martin greeted Motor City’s aggression warmly, squishing Drew Peterson into a box on the sideline as the rock pinballed out of bounds. Jones was all over it, screaming out the call before the ref did. Still the 905 were a touch off beat early. Not quite the right tempo. Until AJ Hoggard entered and Terence Fletcher-d them back to into form.

They ran Horns Out and a backscreen that set up a Trayce Jackson-Davis post up, resulting in a double, and the ball came out and swung for an AJ Hoggard corner 3. Hoggard boogied downhill and countered to a turnaround hook, doubled and helped force a steal. The 905 defence, seemingly galvanized by the momentum forced a shot-clock violation and Hoggard didn’t have an ounce of hesitation banging a triple going the other way. And then somehow even less reticence draining another. It was 11 points four rebounds and a couple assists for the backup guard in the first quarter. It seemed to be a potentially game-changing run of play from the role player.

“He’s super talented, love him to death,” Jones said of Hoggard. “He went from not playing, being in our stay-ready groups, to being a high-level competitor and contributing to our team.”

The 905’s best chance to win was going to be disruption on defence and taking advantage of the easy opportunities that came as a result. Much of their offence came when their was little resistance. Mogbo pinned a layup off the backboard and Martin canned an open transition 3 the other way. The assigned Raptors sophomore forced an early seal and scored over a mismatch, then lost control in transition but recovered to hit another touch shot.

Meanwhile the Cruise found avenues to score in the halfcourt as the 905’s defensive grip waxed and waned. Guards Wendell Moore Jr. and Jaden Akins made their way to the hoop with too much ease. For layups, laydowns and kickouts to shooters. Jackson-Davis grabbed a pick six and ran for a thunderous one-handed dunk to quell a Cruise run, but Moore made a tough turnaround jumper to beat the halftime buzzer and put Motor City up 58-52. They scored only two fastbreak points in the first half, not counting a corner 3 they hit as a result of sprinting past the 905 defence off a make.

The 905 came out guns ablazing to open the third. Joiner picked off a pass and jetted out for a fast-paced layup. Bodies wearing red jerseys turned the paint into a mosh pit as the infamous Isaac Jones was met with enough bodies to cause a fading miss. It was notable how little of a factor Jones was in this game – he checked out with seven points, five boards and five fouls at the start of the fourth – considering his daunting presence in past meetings. Tyreke Key canned an open corner 3 in transition going the other way – one of two in the quarter.

But just as fast, the 905 were snakebitten by lost possessions. A couple bad giveaways – Jackson-Davis falling victim to a blind double and a high pass from Hoggard to a roller – reversed the momentum the other way. The Mississauga-based squad showing bodies successfully negated drives, but resulted in missed box outs, as the Cruise grabbed seven offensive boards for eight second-chance points in the third.

Needing to make a late push, the 905 were still incapable of accessing reliable offence in the halfcourt. They were frequently picked for runouts the other way as the Cruise stayed true to their name in how they reached the rim. Five early fourth-quarter turnovers for the 905 felt like a death knell. Sure enough, Isaac Jones returned to the game and cut unimpeded down the lane for a floater that somehow felt like the dagger even though it put Motor City up only 13 midway through the final frame. Martin made an admirable effort to get up tough-but-not-too-tough 3s and eat into the lead, but with little success.

The effort was too frantic and too late. Momentum wasn’t enough. From a strong stretch, from the home fans, from a group that seemingly enjoyed one another and believed in itself. Jones hammered on habits and consistency all season long. Being the same every possession. And despite their winning ways to close the season, it wasn’t there. The coach has said that maintaining identity is the difference between NBA and G League talent. On Tuesday it was the difference between a great season continuing or coming to an end.

“You feel this pain, and you grow from it,” Jones said.

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