AUBURN HILLS, Mich. – There are nearly 200 possessions in an average NBA game, but the one that mattered most to the Toronto Raptors took place with just over four minutes gone in the first quarter against the Detroit Pistons.
DeMar DeRozan ventured into the lane, found the door closed and twisted himself to kick the ball out to his old friend Kyle Lowry, wide open at the top of the three-point arc.
Lowry caught the pass in the rhythm, stepped into his shot with confidence and let it fly. It dropped for his 186th made-three of the season, but his first in 21 games and his first since undergoing surgery on his shooting wrist just after the all-star break.
At that moment all was well in Lowry’s world and, by the full extension of Lowry’s right wrist, all was well with the Raptors, too.
In the big picture, that’s really all that matters.
Not only did Lowry return from missing nearly a quarter of the season, he quickly and comfortably picked up where he left off as Toronto’s most effective player.
And the smaller picture?
It too was pretty good. Amazing really, as not only did Lowry come back healthy, but he led a comeback as only he can. In his first competitive game in nearly two months, the Raptors’ all-star point guard put his stamp on every facet of the contest, never more than in the fourth quarter of the 105-102 win. It made for a memorable last visit to The Palace of Auburn Hills before the Pistons head downtown to Little Caesars Arena next season.
He led both teams in scoring with 27 and only DeRozan matched his 10 assists. His 42 minutes were a game-high and proof of how badly his teammates needed him as they had to scrap and claw on the second night of a back-to-back on the road from down 20 with four minutes left in the second half and down 12 with just over six minutes left in the fourth quarter.
It was yet another of Lowry’s growing list of remarkable, signature performances in a Raptors uniform, and maybe the most surprising of all.
So Kyle, can you evaluate your first game back?
"No, I can’t," he said. "I’m too F’in tired. We won, that’s all that matters."
The Raptors have been rolling without Lowry, but they’re not going anywhere in the playoffs without him and they weren’t going to win on Wednesday without him either.
"He did so many positive things throughout the game," said Raptors head coach Dwane Casey, sounding like a guy who’d found his cell phone, wallet, passport and keys after an extended panic. "He makes so many winning plays: attacks before the defence is set, he reads situations, gets to the rim, gets calls, makes free throws, reads situations. You can’t really put a number on his effect on the game."
Said DeRozan: “He’s the team. He runs and he showed it tonight. He’s definitely one of a kind. There are no words I can put in context that will explain it.”
There was one number that jumped out: the 42 minutes of floor time. Lowry didn’t have any restrictions on him on his return, but that was not in the plan.
"I’m in trouble, too, because I played him way too many minutes," said Casey. "Before I knew it he was up to 35, 36 minutes. I wanted to keep his minutes down but we ended up being in a dogfight in the end and I over-ran his minutes. Luckily, he has tomorrow off but we have to be careful with his minutes."
The minutes were needed because the Raptors didn’t exactly come out of the gates as if they were inspired by Lowry’s return. More like they were standing around watching. It didn’t help that defensively Lowry looked a bit slow as the Pistons lightning-quick point guard Ish Smith attacked the paint relentlessly early on.
The Pistons scored first, scored often and never trailed as Detroit shot 57.1 per cent in the first half. Things were on the verge of being out of reach when Lowry paused the game, essentially, as he argued for a fan to be ejected from a front-row seat, ostensibly for saying something derogatory towards him. The fan was removed although he was back in his seat after the half.
Perhaps by coincidence the Raptors’ best sequence followed — a pair of triples by Cory Joseph (15 points) helped — as Toronto got the Pistons’ lead to a more manageable 10 points by the half.
Lowry played 21 minutes in the first two quarters and would have been excused for running out gas in the second, but he never did. He treated his time on the injured list like training camp, doing lots of Pilates, running with team trainer Jonny Lee and, as his return got closer, doing a lot of physical on-court workouts with assistant coach Patrick Mutombo.
It paid off as Lowry scored nine of his 27 points in the last 7:13 of the game.
"We worked hard and we ran and we kept my body going," said Lowry. "… It’s been a good process for me."
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As the game went along Lowry looked more and more his old bulldog self: reaching in to strip balls with his right hand, drawing charges, taking deep threes and driving with abandon into the paint.
All part of the plan, he said.
"I wouldn’t have played if I had any fear [about the wrist]. That’s one thing about me … if I’m going to come back, I’m going to come back and play basketball," he said. "No limitations; no restrictions. I’m going to go hoop. The game of basketball is fun for me. It’s what I love to do and I just wanted to go out there and help my guys and help my team get a win."
He needed some help, and eventually got it. Seven points from Lowry in the space of three minutes had whittled Detroit’s lead to 95-93 with just over three minutes to play.
That’s when DeRozan got going, hitting a twisting lay-up to tie, an 11-foot floater on the next possession after the Pistons answered and then assisting on a Serge Ibaka triple that gave the Raptors a three-point lead with 1:21 left. The Pistons tied it one more time before buckets from Jonas Valanciunas — the big man scored 11 of his 19 in the fourth — and DeRozan were enough as the Pistons missed two triples for the tie on their last possession.
Lowry approved.
"Resilience. Just being tough," was how he explained the comeback. "We’re an experienced team and we just keep chipping away at it. They were shooting 57 per cent at the half and we got it down [to 52 per cent] and in the fourth quarter we shot the ball and we made some plays, made shots and finished in a good offensive mode."
He acknowledged some rough patches coordinating with Ibaka and Tucker as they haven’t had a full practice together, but wasn’t concerned.
"It’s been good. We’re pros, we’re professionals and we’re going to figure it out."
The prospect is tantalizing.
The Raptors had the Eastern Conference’s best winning percentage since the all-star break — a healthy .667 mark as they went 14-7 without Lowry thanks in large part to the play of DeRozan and newcomers Ibaka and Tucker.
The win kept them in control of the third seed in East which, for the moment, would mean avoiding first-place Cleveland until the Eastern Conference Finals.
And now they have Lowry back, which couldn’t help but get the Raptors thinking of the future.
"It could be really good, man," mused DeMarre Carroll before the game. "We could be really good. Defensively if we can all click on the same page, get everybody playing hard and then you have Kyle and DeMar carrying the load on offense and myself, P.J. and Serge worrying about defense. We got the best of both worlds. The sky’s the limit for us. We can’t talk about it, we have to go out and do it."
On his first night back, Lowry’s game spoke loud and clear.
