Ask your doctor: What you need to know about Kyle Lowry’s wrist injury – The Defeated – Medium
In an effort to gain more clarity into Lowry’s wrist, the cirumstances surrounding his injury, and to gauge a timeline for his return, I reached out to Shankar Sivananthan, an ICU doctor and an avid Raptors fan with a few questions.
Q: The Raptors referred to Lowry’s injury as having “loose bodies or loose debris” in his right wrist. What does this mean?
https://soundcloud.com/raptorsrepublic/600-raptors-weekly-podcast-ibaka-or-jonas
Masai hopes to rekindle love from stale Raptors – The Defeated – Medium
Every relationship gets stale eventually.
You settle into a routine and the great human inconvenience called romance gets pushed further and further down the to do list. You stop trying so hard. Anyone who has ever built a life around somebody else will tell you this.
Being stale doesn’t necessarily mean the love is gone — it might mean you need a grand gesture. We could always use the occasional reminder for why we’re there in the first place. It requires us to wake up early on a Sunday to serve breakfast in bed, but sacrifice is the very point of the gesture.
Masai Ujiri saw the writing on the wall, saw two months of passionless play, and made his move. Consider Serge Ibaka and P.J. Tucker a bouquet of flowers. The card attach read:
“I’m not a big trade deadline guy. I like training camp, I like preparation, I like all that. With this, the team deserved — players, coaches, the organization, the fans — they deserved this chance to see,” Ujiri told reporters Thursday with a wry grin.
https://soundcloud.com/raptorsreasonablists/s1e08-slap-my-wrist-with-that-sweet-consequence
Raptors-Bucks: A tired group | WOLSTAT | Raptors | Sports | Toronto Sun
– Wright played a fair bit of off-guard, with DeRozan actually shifting to the primary ball-handler role. I had asked Wright recently if he had a preference running point or playing off of the ball or if he was comfortable doing either. Obviously he likes being the initiator of the offence, but he’s fine with whatever role the coaching staff gives him. He has the size to play up in the lineup.
– It was just the second time all season no Raptor reached 20 points and that’s even with the team passing the ball better than it has in recent games.
– Cory Joseph did a better job moving the ball than he has lately. He wasn’t pounding it as much, he was more decisive. Joseph had a season-high eight assists and also had two secondary (“Gretzky”) assists and two more that led to free throws.
– Patrick Patterson doesn’t look right and grimaced after a fall. That knee appears to be bothering him still.
What. An. Ending!!! pic.twitter.com/LRnmGGOlUq
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) March 6, 2017
Takeaways: DeRozan struggles in ugly Raptors loss – Sportsnet.ca
This loss feels like a missed opportunity because as tough as the schedule has been, it is about to get tougher. The Raptors have a much-needed three days off but are still on the road. They have a tough travel stretch from March 8-16 where they are at the New Orleans Pelicans, at the Atlanta Hawks, at the Miami Heat, then return home to face the Dallas Mavericks and the Oklahoma City Thunder.
This is by far the toughest week of basketball the Raptors have left in the regular season before they finish against the defending champion Cleveland Cavaliers.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BROFuzhjZ_y/
‘Robot’ Raptors look lost without Lowry: Arthur | Toronto Star
Lowry’s ability to will this team along is one thing. The other is that he’s the one guy who can really pass. Backup Cory Joseph has an assist rate of 18.9 per cent of all available assists in his career; Lowry is at 30.1 per cent. DeRozan can score, but he’s still not a distributor, and since no other Raptors can reliably create their own shot, he has to. This team was on pace to be the most efficient offensive team in basketball history in the first two months of the season, despite a low assist rate, playing slow and not taking a lot of three-pointers. With Lowry out, they are recording 13.5 assists per game, below their league-low 18.3 all season, and you see just how clanky it can be.
Raptors will use off days to get on the same page | Toronto Star
“We have to use these next few days to make sure we get our work in, to get our timing down, to get mainly our offensive timing and understanding what we’re trying to do under control, especially with our new guys,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said.
The Raptors have gone 4-2 without injured point guard Kyle Lowry since the all-star break, but the two losses have come in the last three games. Guards Cory Joseph and Delon Wright have been pushed into expanded roles and newcomers Serge Ibaka and P.J. Tucker are still finding comfort levels, so this week’s workouts at the Miami Heat practice facility will be all about repetition.
“It gives us the opportunity to have a solid practice, solid time spent on the court where we can get a number of plays run, get comfortable with one another, know the sets, know where to be and know how to help each other out,” Patrick Patterson said.
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE HEART OF A THREE TIME DEFENDING ATLANTIC DIVISION CHAMPION
— alex (@steven_lebron) March 4, 2017
Three things we saw when the Raptors lost to the Bucks, and all kinds of weekend mail | Toronto Star
Trying to figure it out
It’s going to take some creativity to get the offence going every night, hoping that someone emerges as the best second option and someone has a big night in a third-man role.
And there were times last night when the Raptors were really trying to force something to happen.
Late in the third quarter while he was on the court alongside Delon Wright in the backcourt, DeMar was acting as the de facto point guard, initiating the offence on a handful of sets.
Some of it was in an effort to loosen up defence that was stifling DeRozan at times but finding ways to change things up for even a few possessions is something I think they’ll have to do every night to put some unpredictability into the offence.
