MAGICAL AGAINST THE WIZARDS
Dynamic, longest-serving member of team has become primary scorer
Raptors forward OG Anunoby runs up the floor after stealing the ball from the Washington Wizards in Toronto on Friday. Anunoby had 18 points and six rebounds in the Raptors’ 140-111 win. Game centre,
Kyle Lowry is asked to do one thing one season and he does it, and he’s asked to do something different another season and he does it, and there has been one constant to his evolving role with the Raptors.
Whatever he does, he does well. With a somewhat changed roster around him this season from last, Lowry has become a scorer as much as a distributor, a focal point rather than an instigator, a multi-positional backcourt player rather than a pure point guard and he soldiers on. Successfully. With all due respect to Pascal Siakam and others who carry the load for the Raptors now and then, it’s the 33-year-old — the longest-serving member of the team, now in his eighth year in Toronto — who is the driving force.
“I’ve seen a guy that’s put a lot of guts and heart and soul into these games, as usual,” coach Nick Nurse said of Lowry on Friday night. “He just competes.
“Like, I thought the other night (Wednesday in Oklahoma City) he put a lot into it early, and I thought maybe he was out of gas a little bit in that game. And then what does he do? He makes three humongous plays in a row to win us the game.
“He just dug so deep inside himself to go down there and score those buckets. So you’ve got a veteran all-star, leader, winner there that continues to do that role for us.”
Ayear ago, Lowry was more of a setup man for an offence that was predicated on Kawhi Leonard’s excellence and, to some degree, the three-point shooting of Danny Green. Lowry responded by posting a career-high average of 8.7 assists per game for the eventual
NBA champions.
This season, without the benefit of Leonard or Green and with Siakam out for 11 games because of injury, Lowry has become more of a primary scorer. He went into Friday’s game against Washington averaging 20.5 points per game, his highest production since the 2016-17 season and third-best of his Raptors career.
Lowry’s doing that while still putting up an average of15 fieldgoal attempts per game — the most for him in three seasons — that includes a career-high 8.9 three-pointers a night. Nurse would like to see that increased.
“I think ideally 10,” the coach said. “Ten is the number I always like to throw for him.”
But even with his increased scoring and shot attempts from last season, and him sharing the backcourt often with Fred VanVleet, Lowry’s still an efficient distributor and he’s the one constant in ever-evolving lineups.
Going into Friday’s game, he had recorded at least eight assists in four straight games — an average of 10.5 — and he’s had five or more in 29 straight games, his career best for a single season.
Only two other Raptors — Jose Calderon (two times) and Damon Stoudamire — have had five or more assists in 25 straight games in a season.
And whether the Raptors start a big lineup — as they have in their last two games — or a more traditional group, Lowry is the constant.
“I just think that you want some experience out there, especially handling the ball,” Nurse said. “You know that we had a weird stretch in that game the other night where ball-handling became an issue. And that’s a little bit because we’ve got one point guard with Fred (VanVleet) out, and they were eating into us a little bit physically as well.”
Lowry is still very much getting used to these different lineups and dealing with Toronto’s oft-injured roster. He’s patient because he knows working the likes of Siakam, VanVleet, Norm Powell and Marc Gasol back into full game conditioning isn’t going to come quickly.
“It’s going to be different — and it’s going to be kind of a ‘what’s going on’ stage and a ‘what’s what’ stage — but I think it’s something we can really work on,” Lowry said this week.