Game #28: Milwaukee Bucks @ Toronto Raptors, December 9 - 6PM EST TSN/590

[inthepaint]

Okay, but who is saying Lowry having zero points is sustainable? Of course it’s not sustainable, and of course it won’t continue. It does show however that in instances where it happens, if it happens the right way, the team can definitely overcome that.

You said it's okay to (i.e. you can) have a starting PG go scoreless the whole game given he was a +7. If it's okay this game, what makes it not okay (i.e. unsustainable) on future games? There's no "right way" for it to happen, the team was clearly missing his shots tonight (again the attempts were really low), and the team didn't overcome it (we lost). Bottom line is this was a bad game for Lowry, there's no way to sugarcoat it. The good news here is he knows it, and will come back fired up soon. Lowry is an excellent player, he's the soul of this team and will deliver, but tonight we just need to accept he sucked for this one game, and move on.

[G__Deane]

Most fragile fan base in the NBA award goes to ....

[Shaolin Fantastic]

MIL: -10
PHI: +20
GSW: +8
DEN: -12
PHI: +5
MIL: +7

Raps win by an average of 6 points when Lowry is on the floor against teams with under 10 losses, and that’s with him shooting poorly. Ooh, poor Raps, to have to suffer such performances.

Nobody gives a fuck what his plus/minus was in those games.

He's disappearing on the offensive end. His plus minus should be HIGHER than that, and it would be if he was actually producing any kind of offense.

[Shaolin Fantastic]

Dan I trust you but that +/- starts to seem kinda overrated.

It's an actual joke. Especially when you're just looking at raw +/- and saying "see! It's positive! Nothing wrong here!"

No mate, his plus/minus would be even better if he wasn't shooting 27% from the field in those games and scoring single digits. Just because you can kind of sort of survive him being bad because of how good the team is and the fact that he does contribute in other ways doesn't make it acceptable. We want to win a championship. It's not about surviving it's about thriving. We should be able to smash these teams sometimes if we're really a serious title contender.

[Rudy Bargnani]

His plus minus is supposed to be good. He plays in lineups with Kawhi freakin Leonard and he’s the highest paid player on the team. It would be a catastrophe if those numbers were negative.

He’s also a really good player. I’m not saying the sky is falling Kyle just simply needs to be better.

[golden]

Wow this thread is burn-worthy. Guys, am I the only one who is very encouraged by this game?

The all bench garbage fire that Nurse seemed to have figured out was garbage somehow saw 6.5 minutes in this one. They were -13 in those 6.5 minutes. So otherwise we won that game handily. Either way, even if Nurse never figures out that the unit is garbage, he won't trot it out in the playoffs.

I was sure when FVV was the early sub for Siakam that he'd be coming back in with the bench, but nope! Weird.

Otherwise, that was a fun game! No? Great plays made on both sides, Kawhi was a delight to watch (especially defensively). Yeah, Lowry still looks out of sorts but the raw point totals just seem like a side effect of how defences are playing him. He could force up some shots but he's finding guys instead. Lowry had a 121 ORTG in this one (and the Raps had a 65 ORTG with him sitting). The offence is not struggling because he's not scoring. So who cares? Yeah, he needs to hit threes when he's open, and the small number of attempts make it hard to get him back in rhythm. They'll need to find a way to fix that. But in the grand scheme this is not a big issue. No idea why people are panicking.

Wow. Lowry did not have a 121 ORTG, he had a 48 ORTG. When you say somebody "has" an ORTG, it's an individual ORTG. If the team had a 121 ORTG with him on the court, that just tells you that this should have been a blow-out and how well his teammates carried him.

https://www.basketball-reference.com...812090TOR.html

It's mind-boggling how normally fair and balanced posters on this site go to the level of papering over the slightest negative comments directed at Lowry. The extreme bias is clear, and worse than Chr1s1anL's undying love for DeRozan. Is it too hard to say that Lowry shit the bed and might be injured. I really hope it's that because any other scenario (like a re-occurrence of the yips) would be just too painful to contemplate.

17-2: when Lowry scores 10 or more points
3-5: when Lowry scores less than 10 points

10 points is not a lot of points. Do. Your. Job.

[DanH]

Dan I trust you but that +/- starts to seem kinda overrated.

Yeah, it doesn't matter whether you outscore your opponent, so long as you win the game, right? What is this, some kind of points scoring competition?

[DanH]

His plus minus is supposed to be good. He plays in lineups with Kawhi freakin Leonard and he’s the highest paid player on the team. It would be a catastrophe if those numbers were negative.

He’s also a really good player. I’m not saying the sky is falling Kyle just simply needs to be better.

He will be better.

But it's worth noting, over the past 4 games where Kyle has taken fewer than 10 FGA's and can't hit the side of the barn:

Kawhi net rating with Lowry: -0.5
Kawhi net rating without Lowry: -10.1

Funny, that, how Kawhi Leonard doesn't guarantee a high plus minus.

Look, it's a rough patch. Yes, he needs to be better. Yes, of course he will be better.

[DanH]

Nobody gives a fuck what his plus/minus was in those games.

He's disappearing on the offensive end. His plus minus should be HIGHER than that, and it would be if he was actually producing any kind of offense.

Yes, his plus minus should be higher than that, and will be, because the sample provided is 6 random games over the course of the full season and is noise, not signal. But are we really saying that outscoring the opposition, in a sample that is specifically the teams with the highest win rates in the league, is of so little value that we are going to panic over his personal scoring numbers during a rough stretch that there's no reason to think will continue? Who cares whether his personal scoring numbers are there if we are winning?

[Rudy Bargnani]

He will be better.

But it's worth noting, over the past 4 games where Kyle has taken fewer than 10 FGA's and can't hit the side of the barn:

Kawhi net rating with Lowry: -0.5
Kawhi net rating without Lowry: -10.1

Funny, that, how Kawhi Leonard doesn't guarantee a high plus minus.

Look, it's a rough patch. Yes, he needs to be better. Yes, of course he will be better.

Sure—I agree he will be better. But it’s ok to call it a rough patch and to acknowledge that’s not playing well.

[DanH]

Wow. Lowry did not have a 121 ORTG, he had a 48 ORTG. When you say somebody "has" an ORTG, it's an individual ORTG. If the team had a 121 ORTG with him on the court, that just tells you that this should have been a blow-out and how well his teammates carried him.

https://www.basketball-reference.com...812090TOR.html

It's mind-boggling how normally fair and balanced posters on this site go to the level of papering over the slightest negative comments directed at Lowry. The extreme bias is clear, and worse than Chr1s1anL's undying love for DeRozan. Is it too hard to say that Lowry shit the bed and might be injured. I really hope it's that because any other scenario (like a re-occurrence of the yips) would be just too painful to contemplate.

17-2: when Lowry scores 10 or more points
3-5: when Lowry scores less than 10 points

10 points is not a lot of points. Do. Your. Job.

Ugh, well, take up the nomenclature with NBA.com then.

Again, what is Lowry's job? I'd say each and every player on the team has one job and one job only. Win the games.

I doubt Lowry is hurt. He could be, of course. And yes, he's playing poorly. My point is, he will obviously start scoring more, so why are we worried? He's not killing the team in the meantime (he's also not saving the team from Nurse burying them under poor rotation decisions, but it's a rough patch, what can you do?).

Seriously. If you are so dense as to miss the point of the team scoring at a 121 ORTG with him on the court having more meaning than whatever individual scoring he puts up, I don't know what to tell you.

Yeah, his teammates carried him. Kawhi without Lowry in that game had a 75 ORTG (yes, the team number, the only one that matters) in 6 minutes. Pascal? 77. FVV? 68. Weird how those teammates carrying Lowry decided to stop carrying the team once he checked out of the game. Funny how that happens.

[DanH]

Sure—I agree he will be better. But it’s ok to call it a rough patch and to acknowledge that’s not playing well.

If this thread was full of this:

"It's a rough patch and Lowry is not playing well. He will surely return to form soon and score more, and in the meantime the team is still doing well in his minutes and as such these results are very promising for the future when he inevitably plays better than this."

... would I have had any reason to even respond in this thread? Is that the tone of the vast majority of this thread?

[DanH]

It's an actual joke. Especially when you're just looking at raw +/- and saying "see! It's positive! Nothing wrong here!"

No mate, his plus/minus would be even better if he wasn't shooting 27% from the field in those games and scoring single digits. Just because you can kind of sort of survive him being bad because of how good the team is and the fact that he does contribute in other ways doesn't make it acceptable. We want to win a championship. It's not about surviving it's about thriving. We should be able to smash these teams sometimes if we're really a serious title contender.

Gee, I guess we missed out on our chance to win the championship in December. I guess we'll have to give it another shot in the spring. Darn, what a missed opportunity.

[LJ2]

Guys, there’s a lot of time to get Lowry (and OG) back to playing at the levels we need them to be at for the playoffs. I agree it is frustrating losing to the teams that we will be contending with to come out of the East, but if our history has shown us anything, it’s about peaking at the right time.

[A.I]

Lowry and the team struggling to make open shots should be the least of our worries. Its actually quite encouraging to see how close the losses have been. They make a some of their open 3s and Raptors win at least 3 of their losses quite convincingly.