TORONTO — “It’s been stress-free. It’s been fun.”
Kyle Lowry is in his 20th NBA season. It will almost certainly be his last. He’s also in his third season in a mentorship role with the Philadelphia 76ers, but has fully committed to it this year. He’s only played in five games for a total of 42 minutes. He’s taken five shots, made two.
Did he think he might take the floor in what could be his last game at Scotiabank Arena, with the Sixers in Toronto for the first of two consecutive games Sunday and Monday?
“I don’t know. I want to win the game,” said Lowry. “I feel like whatever’s best for my team.”
Amazing. For his entire career, helping teams win games — anyway, anyhow — was Lowry’s specialty.
He didn’t play on Sunday night, and the Sixers lost 116-115 in overtime in a game so weird and grimy that the veteran would have absolutely ruled over it in his prime.
It was a made-for-Lowry basketball movie.
Neither team could make a shot — they combined to shoot just 13-of-63 from three, and the fouls were hard and plentiful, with the Raptors somehow surviving even though they missed 10 of their 39 free throws, while the Sixers converted 25-of-31. There were technical fouls, physical fouls and fouls that should have been called. Everyone was mad at the referees all game long.
In the end, the Raptors prevailed because they were able to ride Scottie Barnes‘ effort down the stretch as he finished with 31 points, seven assists, and eight rebounds, including two physical drives that ended in buckets and another that generated a pair of free throws that helped the Raptors come back from trailing by 10 at the start of the fourth.
He won it at the free-throw line in overtime.
And they prevailed because of the effort supplied defensively and on the boards and in any other area they could by rookies Collin Murray-Boyles and Alijah Martin, and second-year guard Jamal Shead. Each of them playing with an appetite for contact and confrontation that Lowry patented during his legendary nine-year run with the Raptors.
For example, Murray-Boyles continued his impressive run as a 6-foot-7 centre while Jakob Poeltl (back) remained sidelined.
“He’s another guy that only cares about how to help the team,” said Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic. “… That’s why you see him in games with 17 points, and then you see him in big games with four points, and in both of those games, he really affects the team with how he plays.”
Murray-Boyles finished with a career-high tying 17 points, a career-high tying 15 rebounds, three steals, three blocks and three assists in a career-best 42 minutes. His final assist helped tie the game, as he drove through the lane before dumping off to a surprised Shead (22 points, six assists), who forced overtime with a floater from the dunker spot with 1.9 seconds left.
“Nobody was expecting it, so it ended up being a great pass,” said Shead. “… I think he was looking at the rim and at the last second he’s like ‘oh my God, Jamal is right there.’”
It worked. And the Raptors were able to prevail despite missing RJ Barrett (ankle), Brandon Ingram (thumb) and Poeltl for the 10th straight game because of efforts from the likes of Martin, the physical second-round pick on a two-way contract. He provided nine points, four steals and two blocks while playing 10 of his career-high 30 minutes in the fourth quarter and overtime, and while not looking out of place matching up with the Sixers star guards, Tyrese Maxey (38 points) and rookie VJ Edgecombe (17 points).
“I love those types of games. It was dirty out there,” said Martin, who has starred this season with Raptors 905, which has lost just one regular-season game in G League play. “Our bigs were in a dog fight all night. So, the guards had to come down and rebound. We had to fight in there all game, all game, and we prevailed.”
All Lowry could do was watch, which he had done willingly this season.
The GROAT (Greatest Raptor of All Time) has more in common right now, in basketball terms, with old pal Garrett Temple. The 39-year-old career journeyman, who has extended his career to 16 seasons by being a willing and valuable mentor to younger players on the Raptors roster, except that Temple has appeared in nine games this season (four more than Lowry).
“Stress-free” and “fun” weren’t adjectives that might describe a Kyle Lowry season, say, in 2016, or pretty much any other year of his career before this one.
But age mellows even the fiercest spirits eventually, and Lowry is going to be 40 on March 25.
His legacy was already secured. He will have his No. 7 retired at Scotiabank Arena as soon as he decides on a date. He’s got an Olympic gold medal, six all-star appearances, almost every Raptors record that matters, and his fingerprints all over the Larry O’Brien Trophy he led the Raptors to in 2019.
The one accomplishment he wanted was to play 20 seasons in the NBA. Only 14 people have done it, but only two have done it at 6-foot or shorter — Lowry and Chris Paul.
“It’s a small, small, small club,” he said.
Even a few years ago, Lowry was adamant that he didn’t want to be a part of it. Telling me with a firm “no” that he wasn’t going to end his career as a non-playing veteran back in 2023-24, Year 17 for him.
“Sh–, I lied,” he said.
But things change, and Lowry has seamlessly made the transition from a fiery focal point to a big brother in uniform.
Like anyone facing retirement, it’s easier when there is a purpose, and Lowry has found his in offering insight through 20 years of experience to the Sixers trio of young guards: Maxey, who is having an all-NBA season in his sixth year; second-year guard Jared McCain, and the uber-talented Edgecombe, who the Sixers took third overall this past June.
“I think the game of basketball, you’ve got to be able to take yourself out of it sometimes, and say, ‘OK, how can I pay it forward a little bit?’” Lowry said. “I’ve always been the kind of guy who wants to pay it forward.
“And to be honest with you, I got lucky to end up being with a guy like Tyrese Maxey. I got lucky to be around a guy like that, who I want to see thrive. Throughout my career, I had the opportunity to be around a guy like Fred VanVleet. That kind of (told me), ‘Why not try to continue to do that and help a guy like Tyrese Maxey?’ And then you get fortunate enough and they draft a guy like VJ. You got two young guys. And Jared McCain. Sometimes the game gives you something you have to do. I feel like it’s the moment.”
The storybook would be for Lowry, the north Philly kid — who can recite every relevant moment of the Sixers run to the 2001 NBA finals led by Allen Iverson — finish off his career with another Finals run.
The odds seem slim, though Philadelphia arrived in Toronto having gone 5-1 in its past six games, all of which chronically injured former MVP Joel Embiid was available for.
That run brought Philadelphia to within a half-game of the fourth-place Raptors (24-16) before Sunday night, while the win instead lifted Toronto to within a game of third-place Boston.
But the gifted centre missed Sunday night’s match-up with a groin strain and Paul George, the Sixers’ other rickety star, was a late scratch with knee soreness.
The Sixers (21-16) are a dangerous team when healthy, but waiting for them to be healthy through the guts of the season and the playoffs is an invitation to be assaulted by a pipe dream.
So, Lowry’s next big moment will likely come when he retires and when his iconic No. 7 jersey is raised to the rafters at Scotiabank.
“If it does and when it does, it will be a super emotional day,” said Lowry. “I put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into that (No. 7) and to know that it probably will never be worn again will be pretty special. I think something that, for my basketball legacy, will be pretty darn cool.”
Grange for three:
Barnes’ big miss: It’s not too often that you see a game end on an intentionally missed free throw, but that’s just what Barnes did in overtime. After he drew a foul muscling to the rim when the game was tied with 15 seconds to play — the referees rule that the shot he threw up at the rim and went in didn’t count because Kelly Oubre fouled Barnes before he got it off — Barnes hit his first free throw to give the Raptors the one-point lead with 0.8 seconds to play, and then intentionally missed the second, the idea being that the clock would run down by the time the Sixers could secure the rebound.
Whose idea was it? Depends on who you ask.
Rajakovic said it had been discussed during the timeout. Shead said he didn’t know but thought that Rajakovic and Barnes had made eye contact. “I didn’t know what was going on,” Shead said. “In that situation, the less people that know, the better.” Barnes said that he was confused too, and that he was getting “mixed emotions” (I think he meant mixed signals) from the bench. “I was already thinking about it, but I wanted to get confirmation from the sideline,” Barnes said. “… (but) some people were like make it, but I just turned around and as soon as it touched my hands I turned around and threw it off (the rim).”
Murray-Boyles’ big pass: The burly rookie is much more comfortable finishing with his left hand (he is a lefty), but as he was rumbling to the rim with the clock winding down in regulation, the only way he was going to get a shot off was to launch a running, right-handed hook under pressure. “Yeah, felt awkward,” he said. So he improvised, dumping it off to Shead for a game-tying floater. “‘(Shead) has great touch. Praise to him for catching that pass, finishing it and taking us to OT.”
Was he worried that no one — including Shead — expected him to pass?
“That’s what makes it great. He didn’t think I was passing the ball,” said Murray-Boyles, laughing. “That’s why he reacted (how he did) when he shot the shot. It all worked out. That’s all that really matters.”
The Raptors big hurt: The good news: Barnes — who missed Friday’s loss in Boston with a knee he tweaked on Wednesday in Charlotte — played and looked every inch his old self in 43 tough minutes against the Sixers. Barrett was out, but he is day-to-day, said Rajakovic, which bodes well after he rolled his ankle against Boston on Friday. Ingram told me his thumb was much better before going through a vigorous workout before Sunday’s game, which he sat out — just the second game he’s missed all season, both due to the thumb he sprained against Charlotte. There’s optimism he’ll play Monday against the Sixers.
The bad news is that Poeltl remains in limbo with his lingering back issue. He’s missed all but six minutes in the last 13 games. The hope was he would be poised to return anytime this week, but he has still been uncomfortable as his workouts have ramped up. No one is calling it a setback, more that he’s hit a familiar plateau. “There is no real update at this point,” said Rajakovic. “He’s going through workouts. He’s starting to do contact and all of that. As of now, he’s out … hopefully (he’s back) sooner than later. But not at this time.”
