Like many of the NBA All-Star weekend events, the G-League Next Up Game has taken on a variety of forms over the years. The first version of this contest, an All-Star game that mimicked the format of the NBA\u2019s, was first held in Las Vegas in 2007. Since then it\u2019s taken on different forms, including a \u201cFutures vs Prospects\u201d format, hosting international teams, all the way to the format we saw today.<\/p>\n
The mini-tournament consisted of Red vs. Black, followed by Blue vs. White, with the winners of those contests moving on to the final. Each match was a target score contest, with the first round to 35 and the final to 30.<\/p>\n
In similar fashion to the NBA\u2019s All-Star games, the defence and effort was on and off throughout the game. For the final few minutes in both games there was a distinct uptick in energy and effort, with teams wanting to see their way through to the final game.<\/p>\n
While it wasn\u2019t nationally televised (in fact it took a few minutes to find the stream on the NBA App), it looked well-attended, doing what it was meant to: providing an opportunity for a few of the many talented G-League players to showcase their talent and represent the organizations they play for with pride.<\/p>\n
A.J. Lawson represented the Raptors 905 on Team Red. He opened up scoring for the game with a beautiful shot he stepped into. It was a solid start for him, running the floor, grabbing boards, and moving the ball around.<\/p>\n
He struggled to score a little bit, missing some long range shots and a dunk attempt, but he made the most of it with a clutch baseline cut and a steal late in the game. Unfortunately it wasn\u2019t enough to move on, as Team Black took the win on a pair of free-throws.<\/p>\n
Alijah Martin was the second player to step on the court representing Toronto, this time for Team Blue. This game appeared to be less balanced, with Team Blue going down 21-8 early. As we know, Martin isn\u2019t one to give in, and showed a little bit more effort on the defensive end than some of the other players. He was able to convert a long range shot that he stepped into, but didn\u2019t make as much of an impact tonight as he did on Friday for the Rising Stars game.<\/p>\n
The opposite was true for his once-again teammate, Sean East II. East struggled during the Rising Stars game, but cashed in a pair of 3s (one on the assist from Martin), and had a nice move in the paint for a floater.<\/p>\n
Their combined effort brought the score up to 26-23, but they weren\u2019t able to continue on either, with Team White running away with the game after a timeout.<\/p>\n
It also says a lot that both A.J. Lawson and Sean East II are representing Canadian Basketball as alumni of the Canadian Elite Basketball League. Lawson spent a season playing for the Guelph Nighthawks before he made his way to the NBA and returned to the G-League. He took a similar path as Lawson, taking the leap to play for the Edmonton Stingers of the CEBL after his first season in the G-League. During that season, he set the single-season scoring record of the CEBL on August 10 with a total of 546 points. Not much of a surprise when you see him making shots like this:<\/p>\n
While it was disappointing to see neither of the Raptors 905 guys move on, it remains a testament to the development of players within the program to have both of them represented there.<\/p>\n
Now, we wait for Scottie and Ingram will represent Toronto in the All-Star Game later tonight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Like many of the NBA All-Star weekend events, the G-League Next Up Game has taken on a variety…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3770],"tags":[7,5842,6,681,680,476,3820],"class_list":{"0":"post-605383","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto-raptors","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-general","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-raptors","12":"tag-toronto","13":"tag-toronto-raptors","14":"tag-torontoraptors"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116077430275188760","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}