NBA D-League Finals 2015: Santa Cruz vs. Fort Wayne Game 1 Score and Reaction
The 2015 NBA Developmental League finals began with an upset when the Santa Cruz Warriors took Game 1 on the road over the Fort Wayne Mad Ants, 119-115, to move one victory away from the D-League championship.
Elliot Williams exploded for 31 points for the Warriors, which trailed by as many as 20 points in the first quarter. Santa Cruz mounted a long comeback off three straight 30-point quarters, with Aaron Craft adding 15 points and Mychel Thompson posting a big fourth quarter en route to 24.
The Mad Ants started out on fire when they hit the first five shots they looked at but failed to sustain their early defensive prowess. Despite 30 points from Ramon Harris and 24 points from NBA veteran Jordan Crawford, Fort Wayne was outscored by 13 points in the second half.
Meanwhile, Thompson scored eight of the Warriors' first nine fourth-quarter points and keyed the late winning run with a dozen in the final frame. Most impressively, he came off the bench to do it, as Chris Reichert of UpsideMotor.com noted:
The loss snapped a 10-game playoff win streak for Fort Wayne, a team that swept Santa Cruz in this very same spot a year ago. This year, it's the Warriors who enter Game 2 with their brooms waving, as the team's Twitter noted:
The series shifts to Santa Cruz for Game 2, where the Mad Ants will need the win to keep the quest for a repeat alive.
The D-League is almost exclusively a place for young players trying to break into the association rather than established veterans, but don't tell that to Crawford. The 26-year-old has played in 257 NBA games in his career but joined the Mad Ants in March, aiming to impress front-office folks—and he has, averaging 25 points per game heading into Thursday.
Mad Ants head coach Conner Henry explained how Crawford's buy-in has keyed his team's run heading into Game 1, per Justin A. Cohn of The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette:
"He started showing that he really cared and wanted to be here. All of a sudden, Jordan starts talking about wanting to win this thing. That goes a long way when your most dangerous player feels like, "We've got a chance to win." Everybody starts to believe.
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That belief was most definitely collective among the Mad Ants early on. They shot out of a cannon in the game's opening minutes, making their first five shots and taking a 15-3 lead before fans could settle into their seats.
C.J. Fair and Crawford both had it going early, but Harris shined brightest early on with four first-half three-pointers and 13 points in the first frame. Reichert gave the Warriors some advice worth taking:
The Mad Ants' perfect shooting didn't continue, but their defense held tight early to maintain a 34-22 lead after one quarter. Offensively streaky, like their NBA affiliate, the Warriors forced things early and didn't make the most of their half-court sets.
Cohn attributed it to a mindset problem:
But also like their NBA affiliate, the Warriors boast the best defense in their league, holding opponents to 42.2 percent this season. After a sloppy offense led to porous defense in the early goings, they battened down the hatches defensively.
In fact, one team finished the first half at or above 50 percent—Santa Cruz, thanks to Williams and Craft combining for a big second quarter. As the Mad Ants threatened to run away with it early on, Williams hoisted his team on his back during stretches, the team's official Twitter noted:
NBA D-League captured footage of Williams' strong play:
For all of the Warriors' efforts, they hardly resulted in a single-digit halftime deficit. The Mad Ants entered the locker room up 62-53 at the break, but that only set the stage for a comeback that had been brewing since the first quarter.
A far-from-perfect first half for Santa Cruz didn't result in an insurmountable deficit, which allowed the Warriors to make it a game soon after. As they started to climb into the lead, Sea Dubs Central put the comeback into perspective:
Heady play from the point helped to lead the charge, and Craft was the culprit. Not only was he running the offense with conviction, but he absolutely torched the Mad Ants from the field, NBA D-League noted:
The fourth quarter was up for grabs, as the Warriors led 86-85, but within minutes had stretched the lead to seven. Santa Cruz's Thompson—brother of Golden State Warriors' Klay Thompson—went on a personal run to start the final frame, building a lead that the Mad Ants struggled to slice into.
As the Mad Ants proved unable to come back, Cohn fairly (bad pun) wondered why their arguably best guard wasn't in the game:
To be honest, it wouldn't have mattered. The Mad Ants poured in 30 points in the game's final frame but simply couldn't keep up, as the Warriors matched every run made by the defending champions.
The Mad Ants were poised to run away with the D-League title for the second straight year but have fallen victim to immense turnover—13 teams pull from their prospect base. The lack of continuity showed, as Fort Wayne proved unable to sustain solid play on both ends of the floor.
Meanwhile, the Warriors have been rolling with an intact roster for the better part of the season, and it's showing. Santa Cruz's guards look confident on and off the ball and are working together on offense, while the Mad Ants are resorting to hero ball.
Add that onto the fact that they head back to Santa Cruz for Game 2 and things are setting up quite nicely for the Warriors' chase for a D-League crown. Perhaps, their NBA affiliates will follow suit.
