Kyle Lowry was back, he was fresh, and he was ready to go against the Miami Heat after missing four games with a sprained left thumb.
It was his chance to help the Toronto Raptors solidify their position in the Eastern Conference playoff race as the season approaches its midpoint, and maybe gain some confidence against one of the conference’s best teams — even if the Heat’s record doesn’t quite reflect it yet.
And maybe – just maybe – it was a chance to poke a hole in one of the weirdest statistical anomalies going: while Lowry is the acknowledged engine behind the Raptors' success over the past seven seasons, going back to last season the club is 20-3 when he doesn’t play or has to leave because of injury. Heading into Wednesday night they were 7-1 in games where he doesn’t play or leaves because he’s hurt and 10-15 when he does play.
Make that 10-16. Maybe next time.
Lowry played and played well and the Raptors still lost, 116-108, to the Heat as Toronto fell to 16-17 while the Heat improved to 15-17, though they are winners of eight of their past 11.
It had nothing to do with Lowry, who was the Raptors' best player in a largely well-played game by both teams. He finished with 24 points, seven rebounds and eight assists while shooting 9-of-13 from the floor.
As for the Raptors' record when he plays compared with when he doesn’t? Anything to it?
“Listen, at the end of the day that’s still my team and I’m still cheering for my team,” said Lowry. “I don’t care if they win every game without me. I want them to win every game without me. That’s just a good team, a great team whether I’m playing or I’m not playing. We want to go out there and I want my team to win every single game whether I’m playing or not.
"It [shows] us how talented we are. Freddie [VanVleet] is really good, he should have been an all-star this year. Pascal [Siakam] is really good. He’s been an all-star. Norm [Powell] is really good. OG [Anunoby] is really good. We have a well-coached team. So that just shows the growth of our team and just the continuation of how good those guys are going to get and be.”
But they weren’t good enough against Miami, as the Raptors didn’t have quite enough on the second half of a back-to-back, falling to 1-5 in those situations this season. Raptors head coach Nick Nurse was mixing and matching and 12 different players had seen the floor before the third quarter was over, but no one was ready to run with their opportunity as the Heat bench outscored Toronto’s 39-24.
As has been their habit lately, the Raptors didn’t let go of the rope, even if they were playing up hill most of the night. But the Heat were able to surge whenever needed, in large part because of their star, Jimmy Butler, who finished with 27 points, eight rebounds and 10 assists and seemed to make plays whenever needed as his 14 fourth-quarter points might indicate.
As an example, a Powell triple with 5:24 to play pulled the Raptors to within two before Butler responded with a three and then a steal and a layup – one of 16 turnovers by Toronto leading to 21 Heat points. That pushed the lead back to seven, and started a 9-0 run by the Heat guard that extended Miami’s lead to 11 with 2:06 to play. By then, Toronto was largely done.
Both teams moved the ball beautifully in a game that featured more zone defence than a lot of high school games. The Raptors had 30 assists on 37 made field goals as they shot 50.7 per cent from the floor and 20-of-44 from deep. Miami had 31 assists on 37 field goals but the difference in the game was Miami’s 29-to-17 edge in free throw attempts and the Heat’s 11-3 edge on the offensive glass, most of that due to Bam Adebayo, who finished with 19 points and 12 rebounds – six of them offensive.
There was plenty to be encouraged about in Nurse’s eyes:
“Well I hope we can keep our edge up to play defence as hard we’ve been trying to play it," he said. “Again it's not perfect and there's some lapses here and there and there’s some mistakes, but I think the effort, and the fight, and the scramble is there and hopefully we can do that. I think if we do that, we should give ourselves a really good chance in the upcoming games."
Lowry did his best. He put up seven quick points after half time as Toronto used a 10-0 run to pull into a tie early in the third quarter, but the Heat were able to find enough gaps in the Raptors' zone defence to push the lead back to double figures before starting the fourth quarter with a 92-85 lead.
Nurse was planning to lean on Lowry and his rested legs all along and it proved a good call: “I thought he was good. It was good to see him back out there,” said Nurse. “I'm actually kind of surprised he came out and played that sharp skill-wise after being off for so long.”
The Heat bear some resemblance to the Raptors in that neither are yet in the top-four in the Eastern Conference — which is where Toronto is accustomed to being and where the Heat were expected to be after their run to the NBA Finals during the bubble at the end of last season.
“I don’t think anybody thought they were gonna be underneath this thing the whole time and not get out of it, especially with the way they played last year with that entire team back,” said Nurse. “… the majority, 98 per cent of people open the newspaper or click online and look at the record and say, ‘What’s wrong with them?’ But you know the players are there, the coaching is there, winning organization. I would have to imagine you’ll have to go through these guys to get to where you want to go in this conference.”
Lowry was at his best from the jump and Fred VanVleet was good too as he finished with 24 points and seven assists. But missing in action was Pascal Siakam, who got into early foul trouble and limped to just five points on 1-of-6 shooting with Nurse pulling him back to just 24 minutes.
The first quarter proved nothing, as the two teams played it even, save for a triple at the buzzer by Powell that gave the Raptors a 35-32 lead. By that point, Lowry had already made his presence felt as he burst out of the gate with eight points on 4-of-5 shooting, proving decisive off the catch when attacking the paint, creating havoc as he went and knocking down a pair of threes as well. That was an early trend, as the Raptors shot 5-of-9 from deep in the first 12 minutes.
But the Heat began to gain some separation in the second quarter.
The Raptors struggled early against a heavy dose of Miami’s zone – nothing new there. But Toronto didn’t help their cause with some odd lineup choices, such as when Nurse had Stanley Johnson and Patrick McCaw – both little-used and less-than-adequate three-point shooters — sharing the floor with OG Anunoby, VanVleet and Powell.
The offence stagnated and the live-ball turnovers mounted and Miami was off and running. A 17-2 surge fuelled by Raptors' errors over a three-minute span late in the quarter put Miami up 15 before the Raptors got a pair of late threes from Chris Boucher and Powell to go into the half trailing 66-56.
It wasn’t that different in the second half, as the Raptors kept trying to chase the game with Lowry leading the charge but couldn’t quite catch it.
