NBA: Raptors chill while Lowry rides out early-season cold spell
It certainly hasn’t been the greatest of starts to a season for Kyle Lowry, what with the missed shots and the turnovers and the so-so play through a win and a loss.
He knows it, his teammates know it, his coaches know it.
And no one’s the least worked up about it.
As befits a guy now in his 10th NBA season — he is the most experienced guy on the Toronto Raptors roster — Lowry is just going to work through a couple of difficult nights, fully confi- dent that they are an aberration rather than a trend.
He struggled in Friday’s 94-91 loss to Cleveland with a 5-for-16 shooting night, just one three-pointer in five attempts included, and he contributed mightily to Toronto’s 18 turnovers. Still, no real reason to worry.
“I had six (turnovers) myself, and a couple of offensive fouls, couple of bad passes, but it’s early in the season, two games in,” he said. “I wouldn’t take too much (from it).
“Everybody is just feeling themselves and getting right — myself, (Jonas Valanciunas), DeMar (DeRozan), the young fellas (rookies Jakob Poeltl and Pascal Siakam). Everyone is kind of working themselves in.”
While the loss to Cleveland was disappointing and the Raptors did have a great shot to force overtime, on a Patrick Patterson missed three with about six seconds left, the over- riding sense after the game is that things are going to be fine. There are minor issues to clear up, but that’s what the early part of the season is for, to get into rhythm.
“Overall, we fought,” DeRozan said. “We missed a lot of easy shots. We’re still trying to find our rhythm offensively.
“Kyle missed a lot of easy shots that he will make. I missed a lot of shots, especially down the stretch, that I felt were clean and I should have made. (Valanciunas) had a put-back he should have made. You can’t be too disappointed, (but) it sucks to lose.”
The silver lining is the play of Poeltl and Siakam, neither of whom has looked out of place. They will most certainly struggle at times, but so far asking them to contribute hasn’t been costly.
“Give the coaching staff a lot of credit for working with them all summer, getting them prepared for situations like this, being able to play early in the season,” DeRozan said. “That’s big, being able to gain that experience throughout the whole season and not just when it’s a blowout or we’re losing and they come in for a (couple) minutes.”