Why playoff exit ‘doesn’t diminish’ season for Raptors 905
MISSISSAUGA, Ont. — It was right before leading the Raptors 905 to a come-from-behind win over the Motor City Cruise a couple of weeks ago — and just after clinching the team’s first post-season berth since 2022 — that head coach Drew Jones posed a question to his players.
“We’re a playoff team now, but that’s the floor. What’s the ceiling for us?”
A query that’s not so easy to answer. Because in the G League, teams often operate to be of “service” to their NBA counterparts, as Jones explained. Preparing prospects so effectively that they eventually get plucked away.
So reach up for the stars all you want, but expect someone to climb onto your shoulders in hopes of touching the moon.
On Tuesday, as the Raptors 905 fell to the very same Cruise team they had previously beaten, it was hard to ignore that they were without A.J. Lawson, along with his team-leading 20.8 points per game and much-improved defensive impact along the perimeter.
And while there’s little doubt that Lawson would’ve loved to be in two places at once that night, exploring his own ceiling in the NBA (rightfully) took precedent for him and the Raptors organization.
The Brampton, Ont. native has averaged nearly 10 points and 1.3 steals through three consecutive appearances, but more importantly, he’s played 18 minutes per game in that span and shot 67 per cent from distance. Lawson’s case for a real top-level opportunity — potentially getting converted off a two-way and becoming post-season eligible — only looks stronger because of his recent stint, even if that was to the detriment of the 905’s playoff run.
Because while Lawson certainly spearheaded the 905 upward through much of the season, the team had been preparing him for exactly the type of opportunity he’s recently been seizing in the NBA.
Such is life in the pros.
And the fact that the Raptors 905 found themselves in such scenarios repeatedly — and even worked through them at times — exemplified why the year was undoubtedly a step in the right direction, even if the ceiling wasn’t quite as high as originally anticipated.
Which is what Jones made sure to tell his players after Tuesday’s playoff exit.
“That’s the first thing I said,” the second-year bench boss explained. “I said ‘this loss doesn’t diminish what you guys accomplished this season.’ … They really put on this year. The way they allowed me to coach them, the way they adhered to our standard every single day.”
A standard built upon Jones’ four C’s: “Care, connection, character and competition. I’ve led with that since I’ve been here, and our guys have embraced it.”
What they accomplished by adhering to those principles was a G League-best 37-13 record through the tip-off tournament and regular season. A campaign that began with a record 16-0 start and a No. 1 seed en route to the tip-off tournament finals. (It also included the unveiling of a historic new practice facility.) And far removed from the last three seasons of .500 or below showings.
Team success that drove plenty of individual accolades, with two G League All-Stars (Lawson and Alijah Martin) and three players (Julian Reese, Olivier Sarr, and David Roddy) signing two-way deals with other NBA organizations in the back half of the regular season.
Roster turnover that led to a 3-6 stretch between February and March, but was eventually quelled by closing the campaign on a 7-2 run to secure homecourt in the first round of the playoffs.
Jones’ four “C’s” also pushed plenty of internal ceiling-raising. Martin, for instance, stepped up as an on-ball playmaker once Chucky Hepburn was lost for the season due to a knee injury. The rookie guard doubled his assists per game from the tip-off tournament to the regular season and saw an 11 per cent jump in unassisted makes, all while maintaining his scoring productivity/efficiency.
“Absolute pleasure to coach. My kind of guy. Tough as nails, high-level competitor and literally is willing to do anything to win,” Jones said of Martin, who, along with Jonathan Mogbo, took a car service from Detroit to Mississauga on Tuesday to participate in the 905’s playoff game. “And I think when you have a guy that’s that talented, with that level of competitive character, he’s fun to coach.”
There was also AJ Hoggard, whom the Raptors 905 took 10th overall in the 2025 G League draft, and went from DNP-CDs early on to being a go-to floor general in Hepburn’s absence, leading the team in assists during the regular season.
“He went from not playing, being in our stay-ready groups, to being a high-level contributor,” Jones said of Hoggard’s development, shortly after the 25-year-old put up a team-high 22 points off the bench against the Cruise on Tuesday. “Just super talented … he’s going to grow tremendously.”
That upheld standard was what ultimately allowed the Raptors 905 to squeeze every last drop of juice from their players and the organizational philosophies of pesky point-of-attack defence and ball-movement offence, irrespective of available personnel. Maintaining a top-three defence all year and peaking as high as top eight on offence through the tip-off tournament, which led to a league-best net rating (plus-8.9) over 50 games in 2025-26.
And that’s the G League balancing act, right?
Building a winning team and then figuring out how not to fall off the rails when parts get picked off. (Something last year’s squad wasn’t able to handle, finishing 2024-25 on a 2-17 slump once their key contributors were poached).
Unfortunately, even while keeping the train on the tracks this season, the one “C” the 905 couldn’t figure out proved to be their undoing.
Consistency, or lack thereof, plagued the junior dinos for chunks of the year — slow starts, combined with waxing-and-waning defensive execution, were often sticking points for Jones.
All of which showed on Tuesday, when in patches the 905 resembled the squad that ran roughshod on the league for months — forcing over 20 turnovers a game during the tip-off tournament and ranking among the league leaders in fastbreak points — but also the team whose defence couldn’t do enough heavy lifting (and lacked the top-end talent) to carry an offence that stumbled to middle-of-the-pack production down the stretch.
“Resiliency when you’re down and discipline when you’re up,” Jones responded when asked what his biggest takeaway from the season was. “We show that level of resiliency when we’re down in games and then being disciplined when you’re up, right? Having the professional maturity to adjust as the game is being played. Knowing when to go on runs, knowing when to bring it out. All habits that young teams have to go through … and those are some of the lessons that we learned this season.”
Still, even through a disappointing loss, Tuesday’s playoff game felt like a culmination of the Raptors 905 season — scratching and clawing to the bitter end, no matter the circumstances. Regardless of how many times the team was pushed toward the floor as they propelled players to the next level, the 905 kept on reaching for their own proverbial ceiling.
And they may not have reached it. Not the stars or the moon. But the view from where they ultimately landed is still worth admiring. A campaign backed by a year-long effort to rise above nearly half a decade of stagnation, all while remaining in service of the Raptors.
So until next season, all that’s left to do is “learn from it,” as Jones explained.
“Challenges and adversities are opportunities to grow … you feel this pain, and you grow from it.”
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