Why Kyle Lowry will break from his slump

Kyle Lowry will need to break his from slump if the Raptors are to defeat the Heat.

If there is one word that could sum up Kyle Lowry’s mood since the playoffs began it would be crabby. Long after the 102-96 Game 1 loss to Miami where he had zero points till half time and ended up with 7-pts (3-from-13 from the field), crabby Lowry cast a lonely shadow inside the Air Canada Centre and was seen shooting buckets in a black hoodie till the early hours of Wednesday morning.

Even his post game interviews with Toronto media, you could tell he was crabby about his game and tired of having to explain why his shot has gone cold. Form is temporary. But breaking a form slump is hard to predict.

Lowry must be asking himself how he got here. He’s gone from putting up 21.2 points per game in the regular season to averaging around 13 since the playoffs started. Against Indiana he only scored more than 20 points once in seven games and collected 97 points at 13.8. But it’s the shot count that is a worry: he went 31-98 from the field and 7-38 outside the arc.

If it wasn’t for his sturdy 28-from-39 at the line, things could have looked a lot worse. Dwane Casey has remained mute on whether or not his elbow is impeding his shot technique and Lowry isn’t giving too much away.

Playoffs breed a different type of defense: marking is tighter, prolific scorers are targeted and it’s more common to see double and triple teaming. Someone like Paul George can weather that storm and still manage to put up 25 points or more. Dwayne Wade is another one of those elites that can shake consistent defense.

Lowry, on the other hand, hasn’t been able to produce his brand of aggressive offense – the hard drives, the long threes, the pull up jumpers – as often as he’d like at these playoffs. This is, above anything else, Lowry’s main burden that is hampering his flow and perhaps why he has stalled in offense production.

“It’s weird. I have (been through slumps) like this, but not at this time, and that’s what sucks. Playoffs, all eyes are on you. So it sucks that I’m playing this bad when all eyes are on me, because I know I’m way better than this. So I’ve got to pick this s— up.”- Kyle Lowry as told to the Toronto Star

The good signs for Lowry is that he’s still involved and the Raptors are, for the most part, playing consistently and were able to beat Indiana. Against the Pacers, Lowry was busy on the floor with 53 assists and 29 rebounds for the series.

Even though the buckets weren’t flowing he was still able to be an influence, bringing other players into the game such as: Corey Joseph who averaged 10.7 ppg against Indiana; Norman Powell who shot 43 points for the series seeing small amounts of minutes; and tall timber Jonas Valanciunas who averaged almost just as much as Lowry with 13.5 points.

Touching the ball and have some impact without scoring has the ability to build confidence in players that have seemingly forgotten how to score. Lowry only needs to look at his team mate DeMar DeRozan who went from brick machine to match winner in a matter of matches. His solution: taking those good-look-shots, rather than shooting in traffic amid a sea of arms and hands.

But crabby Lowry is not the Lowry we’ve come to know. It’s a credit to his work ethic that he hit the courts to work on his shot after the Miami loss a couple of days ago but we already know he can shoot. During the regular season he averaged 21.2, amassed 1634 points (the most he’s ever scored in a single season) and ranked among the best 25 NBA scorers for most of the year.

Lowry was also an All-Star and if you look at his month-by-month scoring averages, the only month he didn’t average more than 20-points was April with 17.0 and now May.

How the six-foot point guard went from one of the league’s hot hands to shooting bricks in the space of a few weeks is puzzling, but one thing is for certain: he needs to turn it around if the Raptors are to book themselves a date in the Eastern Conference Finals.

Luckily for Lowry, the Raptors still beat Indiana without him contributing a hell of a lot to the offense, but he did contribute in other aspects of the game. And that’s the upside for the Raptors. If Lowry can shift gears, reclaim his regular season confidence, this Miami series will go to seven and the Raptors will go close to winning.

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