Toronto Raptors: Kyle Lowry Must Regain His Composure

The fate of the Toronto Raptors on a game to game, possession to possession basis is in the hands of Kyle Lowry. To this point, he has let his team down.

The score was 50-46 in favor of the Cleveland Cavaliers when Kyle Lowry fired up another three-point attempt that was off the mark. LeBron James secured the defensive rebound and mere seconds later the Cavs were down at the other end of the court and J.R. Smith had drawn a shooting foul on DeMar DeRozan.

At that moment the Toronto Raptors called for a timeout and Lowry did something that felt largely unprecedented at the time. Overwhelmed with the moment and his poor play, he decided not to re-enter the game, but instead went to the locker room to blow off some steam.

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Lowry eventually returned and entered the game with 13 seconds remaining in the quarter, but at that point the damage was done. The Cavs closed out the quarter on a 16-2 run and put Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals out of reach for the Raptors.

Lowry has shot a combined 8-of-28 so far in the conference finals, but poor shooting has followed him for the majority of the playoffs. When he has shot poorly in the past, he has found a way to be a positive contributor on the floor with his defense, ability to get other players quality baskets and controlling the tempo of the game.

He has failed to do any of this against the Cavs, and the play of both he and his team have looked disjointed.

After the game, Lowry explained why he made the decision to leave the court:

"“Just to kind of decompress, get back there, kind of relax my body and relax my mind,” Lowry told the media. “And knowing that we had a chance to kind of make some things [happen], I wanted to get myself going and get my teammates going and get the team going. It was nothing more than just kind of to decompress, breathe and get back out.”"

On some level the decision to gather himself mentally made sense. But with 2:34 left in the half at the time he checked out, why he couldn’t have waited until half to decompress seems puzzling. At that point, if he understood he was not going to be the one to shoot Toronto back into the lead, he could have at least played defense and been a leader on the floor.

It’s clear at this point that Lowry’s struggles are primarily mental. He appeared to have turned a corner against the Miami Heat in the conference semifinals, scoring 25, 36 and 35 points respectively in the final games of that series.

But so far in this series he has been a shell of himself, averaging 8.5 points and 4.0 assists a game. On the other end of the floor he’s been arguably even worse, as Kyrie Irving has averaged 26.5 points and 4.0 assists per game through two games.

Considering Lowry ranked third for point guards in defensive real plus minus, his lack of focus and commitment on that end of the floor has been disturbing.

Heading back to Toronto, the Raptors need Lowry to regain the poise and focus he has displayed throughout his tenure with the team. Cold spells, while unfortunate, do happen.

It’s clear that the moment is getting to him, but he cannot let that show as much as it has to this point. He cannot mentally check out of the game, and he absolutely cannot literally check out of the game the same way he did in Game 2.

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This season has been the most successful season in the history of the Toronto Raptors and he has been the biggest reason for that success. He can’t forget that. Players of his caliber can struggle the same as anybody else, but as a leader he cannot quit and must regain his composure for the rest of the series.