As Kyle Lowry enjoys the best start of his career and Cory Joseph continues to prove a savvy free agent addition, the Toronto Raptors are reaping the benefits of more than just their individual successes; the two point guards are eviscerating opposing teams when they share the floor together.
When the Raptors signed Joseph to a four-year, $29.9-million contract to be Lowry’s backup this offseason, the price tag suggested they believed in the potential for the two point guards to share the floor. But the magnitude of their synergy and the speed with which they’ve found it is, in a word, startling.
The pair played 19 minutes together in the season opener against a very small Indiana Pacers outfit, yet head coach Dwane Casey shelved the look for most of the next few games. However, the short-term losses of DeMarre Carroll and Terrence Ross that followed, while trying in the moment, provided further opportunity for Lowry and Joseph to grow comfortable together and begin laying waste to teams.
In the 196 minutes that the two point guards have shared the floor together this season, the Raptors are outscoring opponents by 17.2 points per-100 possessions, according to data from NBA.com. That makes them the most effective and one of the most used point guard duos in the NBA so far this season, and it’s little surprise that Casey has continued playing them double-digit minutes together as a result.
That’s in part because while putting a second point guard on the floor is normally done to goose the offense, the Lowry-Joseph pairing has been locking opponents down, too. The Raptors have been much better at both ends of the floor with both point guards playing, per data from NBAWowy.com (their numbers differ slightly from the NBA.com data as the two sites calculate possessions differently).
“Both of them are two tough guys defensively,” Casey said Wednesday. “Cory is one of our best perimeter defenders. He’s bigger than you’d think he is, he plays bigger; he can guards smaller guys, he’s speedy. But his toughness and his willingness to play defense has allowed him to play alongside Kyle.”
Joseph is listed at 6-foot-3 but boasts a 6-foot-5.5 wingspan and 8-foot-3 standing reach at the 2011 draft combine. Needless to say, those are above-average measurements for a point guard, and combined with his tenacity and intelligence on that end of the floor, Joseph is able to check whichever opposing guard proves a more difficult matchup.
That allows Lowry to act as more of a free safety on defense—and he’s leading the league in steals as a result. In fact, his steals go up by 19 percent when he’s playing with Joseph. The team as a whole forces more turnovers, too, which lets the smaller lineups get out and push the pace in transition.
“I feel like we play faster with us two on the court, which helps us when we go small-ball,” Joseph said before the team’s west coast trip. “It’s just a different dynamic we can go to, which is good. And obviously he’s a great scorer, so we move him to the two-spot and it’s different for people to guard him.”
Offensively, Lowry’s game changes completely alongside Joseph. Instead of acting as the team’s lead guard and facilitating for others, he’s been in attack mode, scoring at a prodigious rate and practically living at the free-throw line. With Joseph distributing it allows Lowry to spot up, where he’s a dangerous outside threat, and then attack closeouts, where he’s nearly impossible to stop without fouling.
Lowry isn’t scoring any more efficiently with Joseph – his true shooting percentage is almost identical in either case – but maintaining his stellar efficiency in a much larger scoring role is impressive. When Lowry’s in attack mode, he’s incredibly difficult to guard, and the attention he commands opens up plenty of opportunities for teammates.
The net result has been the Raptors’ offense as a whole being more efficient with two point guards. That’s not surprising. But the way that Lowry and Joseph change the team’s entire shot mix is: the Raptors go from taking only 55.3 percent of their shots from high-efficiency areas (3-point attempts and shots in the restricted area) to taking 64.4 percent of their shots in those spots, all while turning the ball over less.
While Joseph is thriving on defense, it’s naturally muted his offensive numbers. If Joseph can begin knocking down open threes more regularly— he’s at 25 percent on the year— the pairing will prove even more deadly.
“That wasn’t my role in San Antonio, we had a lot of 3-point shooters,” Joseph said of the adjustment to taking more spot-up looks. “I know I can make it, I know I can knock it down. So once I get my 3-point shot going, a lot of players will have to help out, play me closer. That gives Kyle and DeMar (DeRozan) more room to operate.”
Joseph was almost always the exclusive point guard in San Antonio, as he rarely shared the floor with Tony Parker. That makes the quick chemistry between he and Lowry even more impressive, aided perhaps by Lowry’s long history of sharing the backcourt (he’s done so for heavy minutes with Greivis Vasquez, Goran Dragic, and Aaron Brooks).
It’s fortunate that the pairing has proven so effective, as the recent injury to Jonas Valanciunas will require Casey to get creative with his rotations. Still, the Joseph-Lowry look isn’t always an option, as the Cleveland Cavaliers showed Wednesday by keeping Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson on the floor together and forcing the Raptors to matchup accordingly. But against most teams, the Raptors will be able to sacrifice size in order to get their best lineup on the floor.
For as much as Casey is wont to deploy his lineups in reactionary fashion, he should be using the Lowry-Joseph pairing to dictate the style of play late in games. The starters, with Joseph in place of Luis Scola, were vaporizing opponents before the Valanciunas injury.
Casey would be wise to stick with the Lowry-Joseph-DeRozan-Carroll foursome to close out most games, even without his center.