Lowry missed 10 of his 13 attempts throughout the game, also going 1-for-7 from three, with his only made long-range shot being the desperation half-court heave. Then Lowry launched the shot of the night to extend into five minutes of overtime.
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“I tell him all the time, good or bad, I’ve got the utmost confidence in him”, DeRozan said. Watching him up close I got an appreciation that yes he’s lost a step but his change of pace still allows him to get to his spots on the court. Lowry must get over any mental anguish he’s now facing for the Raptors to have a shot at advancing past the Heat. “I have to play better for us to be a good team and win games”.
“We’ll make some adjustments, I like our battle”, said Casey. “I’m not going to shy away from the criticism or anything I want to continue to be aggressive, shoot shots and take the onus”.
“We know he’s not shooting the ball well, he’s not making plays with shots that he normally makes”. We go out of one series with me not shooting well.
Kyle Lowry went scoreless in the half while Dragic – Lowry’s former backup in Houston – turned up the speed in transition and found eight quick points.
GameThread: come back and join us to chat live. With Lowry out of the game Toronto has only scored 84.8 points per 100 possessions and given up 109 points. With 3.3 seconds left in the fourth quarter and Toronto down by three points, he received an inbounds pass in the backcourt and came as close as you can to stepping out of bounds on the sideline. You can thank Kyle Lowry for that.
Toronto coach Dwane Casey compared him to a baseball hitter in a slump. Lowry publicly denies that the injury affects him, but his offensive impact must improve.Despite his low scoring, Lowry posted a positive plus/minus in game 1, which indicates that he’s helping the offense in ways other than scoring. “I’m not doing it for any particular person but myself”, he said. It’s much different from us playing IN and them playing Charlotte and just trying to catch a rhythm with that.
Lowry said he can take some confidence in the fact the Raptors won the in series without much of a scoring contribution from him. “Kyle is a confident player. Done that countless times in North Philly”, he said. He figures this group has more discipline than the shot-happy, fast-paced group that crashed and burned last season. In Game 2, the rest of the Spurs made just 25 of 73 shots (.342). “We just have to clean up some situations that we created ourselves to make sure we take advantage in the next game”.
Ready For Game 2: Despite dropping the first game of the series for the second time this postseason, Casey doesn’t doubt that his team will be ready to go when the game tips off on Thursday.
How each team shows up for Game 3 of their respective series on Friday night will likely go a long way toward defining just how long these matchups will last.
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Lowry scored seven points in over 42 minutes, that’s five more than Heat veteran Udonis Haslem scored in five minutes, and 19 less than Goran Dragic, who scored a game-high 26.
