Lowry knows his best angles
Studying the game has sent Toronto veteran up the ranks of rebounders
Kyle Lowry’s a great shooter and an excellent ballhandler and his basketball leadership skills are off the charts.
Seems he’s got a solid grasp of geometry, too.
As he rises up the ranks of the Raptors’ all-time rebounders — no small feat for a small player — Lowry figures it has as much to do with knowing and playing the angles.
“Rebounding is a lot to do with angles for guys my size,” the six-foot Raptors guard said this week. “I can’t jump over the trees and grab the ball above the rim, I have to find the spots and understand where the ball is going to bounce, or see where the shot is going, if it’s going to be short or long.
“It’s the small things. If the guy shoots from the left corner, most likely he’s going to miss from the right side. It’s the small details.”
With four rebounds in the first half of Tuesday’s game in Milwaukee, Lowry moved into third place on the Raptors alltime rebounding list. Lowry began the game tied with Amir Johnson but went past him and Antonio Davis and into third behind Chris Bosh and Jonas Valanciunas.
He added two more rebounds in the third quarter before leaving with an ankle injury.
Some of his 2,842 rebounds have to do with sheer time — Lowry has played more games in a Raptors uniform than anyone not named DeMar DeRozan — but that’s an oversimplification. Lowry is smart, strong and savvy and that’s why he gets rebounds at a startling rate for someone his size.
Plus, the angles stuff.
“He kind of knows where it may go to on the bounce off the rim, and he'll be the first one there a lot of times, just because of his feel for the game, and (the ability to) read and anticipation of where that ball might be heading,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said.
Lowry’s willingness to study the game has taught him a few tricks, too. He knew he couldn’t dominate the glass like some seven-footer, so he watched players more his size or at his intelligence level.
“If you look at Dennis Rodman (a six-foot-seven forward who led the NBA in rebounding four times), he wasn’t the most athletic guy, but he knew angles, he knew situations and he knew how to rebound the ball,” Lowry said. “Look at Jason Kidd (a six-foot-four guard). Before the triple doubles that Russell (Westbrook) does, he was getting triple doubles. He knew where the ball was going to bounce and figuring out the trajectory.
“I watched a lot of J-Kidd growing up. He’s had crazy rebounding games.”
Before Tuesday, Lowry had averaged 4.9 rebounds per game in 579 games with the Raptors, with a career high of 14 boards in a game last season.
But the stats don’t take into consideration the number of times he has created rebounding opportunities for teammates by holding off opponents under the glass. His ability to get “under” bigger opponents and drive them away from the ball is an understated part of his game.
“He does a good job of using his body and getting down low and blocking out guys that are much, much bigger than him,” Nurse said.
“You’re supposed to box out, one,” Lowry said. “Two, you watch and see if a guy shoots it short. And then sometimes it’s just about getting to the right spot.
“If there’s a guy underneath the block, you want to push him down under the rim so once it bounces, he can’t get to it, I have the angle to go that way, to go get it.”