Lowry taking it in stride
Veteran still doing ‘whatever they need’ as Sixers extend Raptors’ slide
Nick Nurse has had a front-row seat watching Kyle Lowry take over NBA games.
So the Philadelphia 76ers head coach wasn’t really surprised Friday when the 38-year-old Lowry had his best game since joining the Sixers, a 23-point, six-assist effort against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Philadelphia lost the game, but Nurse appreciated Lowry’s aggressive approach to it.
“I kind of hoped this was coming. I’m not expecting 20 or 25 points out of him every night but once in a while it’s certainly nice to have,” Nurse said Sunday, ahead of this team’s 135-120 win over the Raptors at Scotiabank Arena.
The loss was Toronto’s 13th straight.
Lowry and the 76ers rolled into town looking to return to their winning ways after a three-game skid. Despite not having their two best players in Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embiid, they had no problem handling a badly depleted Raptors team missing six of its regulars due to injuries and personal reasons.
Kelly Oubre Jr. led the way for the Sixers with 32 points, Cameron Payne added 24 and Tobias Harris scored 21.
The Raptors tried to bring some respectability to the game, keeping the deficit under 10 points early into the fourth quarter, but they couldn’t overcome an excellent three-point shooting night from the 76ers, who made 24 of 43 attempts from beyond the arc.
Gary Trent Jr. led Toronto with 23 points, Jordan Nwora added 19 off the bench, and Kelly Olynyk had 18 points and 11 assists.
Lowry joined his hometown team in February after a buyout with the Charlotte Hornets, who acquired him in a mid-season trade with Miami.
He didn’t play any games with Charlotte and had been out of the lineup for weeks before he started easing into games with the Sixers. He has played 18 games with Philadelphia, averaging 8.6 points and 4.5 assists in 28.5 minutes per game.
Lowry played 37 minutes against the Raptors, finishing with 11 points and 10 assists, and said he’s having fun figuring out his place on the Sixers.
“Whatever they need me to do, like I have always done in my ca- reer,” he said.
“I’m not the go-to guy here on this team, I’m the guy that’s going to help the go-to guys get better, get open looks.
“Right now we just got to take it day by day, game by game, just try to get fully healthy.”
Nurse said Lowry’s importance to the team comes in a variety of ways.
“He’s doing a lot of stuff that he’s always done,” the coach said. “He’s a good organizer, I think that he’s really helped our defence get better and better just by knowing and certainly understanding a lot of things that we want to do as a coaching staff, and kind of making sure it gets done out there on the floor.
“He’s been really good in that sense, and it’s good to see him really get on track offensively again.”
Toronto head coach Darko Rajakovic knows the importance of having a veteran player like Lowry on a roster.
“(He is a) championship-calibre player. He knows what winning is about,” Rajakovic said. “Definitely he’s a player that can help the locker room, he can help coaches, he can help everybody in the organization do what it takes to win at the highest level.”
The six-time all-star played nine years in Toronto and was a major contributor to the 2019 championship.
He has previously indicated this won’t be his last season, and also made his intention clear that he would like to retire as a Raptor.