Explosion. An explosion is a sudden, violent change of potential energy to work, which transfers to its surroundings in the form of a rapidly moving rise in pressure called a blast wave or shock wave. The shock wave can cause substantial damage.
Kyle Lowry. Kyle Lowry is a sudden, violent change of direction, who dismantles his surroundings in the form of rapidly moving basketball moves called cross overs and deep threes. These basketball moves can cause substantial damage.
When the laughing stock of the league for the last few years arrives licking their wounds from Cleveland the night before, and their best player is sitting, your best player is expected to show up. Kyle Lowry showed up.
There isn’t much to dissect in a 122-95 blowout win, but taking stock of Lowry’s game is important. Philly hung with Toronto for approximately eight minutes before Lowry announced his arrival. With the Sixers nursing a 17-14 lead, Lowry took a feed from DeMarre Carroll and drilled from deep, and I mean deep to tie the game and set the tone for the rest of the night. The Raptors used enough offense in the first, including Patrick Patterson’s ridiculous half-court shot to lead 33-26 heading into the second quarter.
It was more of the same in the second frame from KLOE. He hit two more threes to help the Raps finish 8-14 from deep in the first half alone. Lowry may not have known it yet, but he was setting the tone for the rest of his teammates on a night his parter didn’t have it. DeMar DeRozan finished the first half with just four points, and wound up with a rare 14 on the night on 3-14 shooting. Still, if you take a closer look at the numbers and tape, DeMar had a productive night, playing distributor when the Sixers repeatedly sent doubles at him and clogged the paint. Number 10 finished with five assists, and led the team in plus-minus at +23. A combination of hard-work in the offseason, and some influence from those around him has turned DeRozan into more than just a scorer, and it’s fun to watch.
If the game wasn’t already out of reach in the second half, the Raps put the Sixers out of their misery in the third, courtesy of Toronto’s newest band, “Lowry and the Dimes”. Six different Raptors scored including back to back buckets from Carroll, (the second a three!), and Lowry was conducting the offense at will. Pascal Siakam and Jonas Valanciunas took turns scoring in the post, and it was awesome to watch Siakam play a strong 23 minutes even if it did come against the NBA’s version of “can we play too?!”.
In the fourth Terrence Ross reminded everyone that “hey, if you give me a few more minutes, I’ll give you a few more points”. All you really need to know is that he started the quarter with nine points, and finished the game with 22. He hit two deep threes, and all the free throws on his third attempt he was fouled on. He didn’t miss in the quarter and finished 8-11 on the night. Lowry set him up twice in the frame for open looks, and if there’s any better news to come out of the performance from Ross, it’s that Dwane Casey couldn’t stop talking about how great his defense was.
Finding negatives in this game is like finding flaws in Lowry’s. Every Raptor including Fred Van Vleet and Jakob Poeltl found the floor, and with the exception of Norman Powell (oddly enough) no one finished with a negative rating on the plus/minus side. Two early concerns in the season were rectified (for now) with the Raps holding a team to under 100 points while drilling their threes. They finished 13-19 as a team from beyond the arc thanks to exactly the guys you want hitting them. Patrick Patterson was 2-4, DeMarre Carroll 2-3, Terrence Ross 3-5, and of course, the explosion himself, Kyle Lowry going an absurd 6-6.
There’s not much to say in a blowout that should happen, but that doesn’t mean it ain’t fun to watch.
Next Up: The Grizzlies tomorrow night.
