Kyle Lowry turning things around (UPDATE: Added Lowry's highlights)

heheheh :grin:

but to the op...yes i agree he has turned things around and is doing amazing!!!yay!!

 

Lowry's getting into shape and learning to play with the starters better. He also may be getting better adjusted to playing ironman minutes. (Another near 40-minute game tonight.)

That said, I think some of tonight has to do with the level of competition. The Warriors played really poor defense, their double teams were awful, and they were in foul trouble for most of the night. And while Curry's quickness gets him some steals, he's not a physical enough defender to affect Lowry's game. The conditions were ripe for Lowry to pick them apart.

 

These were the same Warriors that smashed us earlier in the year.

 

To be fair, one of them had a pretty damn abnormally good night.

 

The bigs rotation is still a puzzle Adelman needs to solve. The only constant is Scola. It looks like the coach is playing by the ear each night.

Hayes was playing out of his mind in the first half tonight. So he ate Miller's and Hill's minutes. Some nights, Hill played a lot because he was doing well. Same with Miller.

Patterson is learning the ropes this year. I expect him to compete for PT next year. Miller is only a short term patch up. We'll need the young guys to step up in the near future.

And of course, Yao is th biggest X factor.

 

True, though I think Lowry helped to slow him down.

 

Lowry is now making his contract worth it, and I think he will continue playing like this, tonights game, was really good for him.

 

The biggest difference between the two games are that David Lee didn't play and the Rockets weren't playing the second night of a back-to-back. I thought fatigue was a huge factor the first time around, but this time, I don't think the Warriors had the legs to try to outrun us again.

Plus, Monta Ellis shot .750 FG% that first game, but is in a slump right now. In the past three games including the Rockets game, he shot .200, .318, and .333.

I'm not saying Lowry didn't play well, but if you factor in the level of competition, he's not suddenly playing dramatically better than he has been these past several games.

Or to put it another way, he was playing pretty well before too, but because we were losing, not many people noticed.

 

I truly believe that if Lowry started for an entire year and got consistent big minutes, he would have ~3 triple doubles by the end of the year.

 

*Fantasy Help*

Should I star Lowry or Mike Conley on Friday. Conley is playing GS and we are playing Charlotte. I know there is a separate fantasy forum but this choice has been conflicting me, considering I'm dying in assists and steals, the job of a PG

 

GS has no d and charlotte does....

 

He's probably just finished "playing himself into game shape", something Tracy always said he would do with us. These words are NBA slang for "I sat on my ass and spent some of that hard-earned money this offseason."

Although we'd been hearing about how hard Lowry was working out in Las Vegas...it was still Vegas after all.

 

don't forget he had two injuries within a short period of time...that time off could have been enough to mess up his timing and drop his conditioning to where his body felt like it didnt even have a training camp.

 

i dont think its necessarily because the other teams are packing the paint and forcing us to shoot threes. we have a players who like to shoot threes and we often shoot em in transition. and besides some of those 3s were good looks but were just shot by mediocre shooters (lowry)

 

got em.

 

not sure about his contract being worth it just yet.

no arguments on his improvement. i hope he continues that.

and then eventually becomes worthy of his contract.

 

I agree with your assessment of our competition. I would add we continued to have a meltdown with stupid plays and turnovers in the 4th. And if it weren't for great 3 shooting, Hayes going 8 for 8 from the line (won't happen again this season) and some lockdown D on Ellis we would have lost.

That said, even if we lost I would still be very happy about Lowry's improved play, Hayes' improved free throw shooting and Bud's improved anything. I knew Bud would and will get out of his shooting slump. He is a 40% 3 pth shooter. I expected Lowry to improve some but not as much of the distributor he has been lately. (He still has to hit at least 30% from the arch... the Warriors weren't even guarding him out there)

As for Hayes, he utterly shocked me. He won't shoot 80% at the line this year but if he can keep it above 65 and close to 70, he becomes a viable option in the 4th. His defense is so solid and for short periods can guard any big in the league as witnessed by his total shutdown of Amare. In addition he has actually improved his offensive game to pretty decent within 4 feet. (listen how I said 4 not 5, his range is that limited). And withing that range he draws fouls. If he can hit better than 70 he actually becomes an offensive asset. Hayes an Offensive asset WOW! I never thought those words would come out of my mouth.

I also said this somewhere else that I thought this team could be a championship contender if they just added Yao to last year's team. But coming into the season we had so many things we had to adjust to. Too many players who had to learn their roles and Yao who was still a big question mark. I think a lot of roles are slowly getting defined. If Lowry continues to improve and the teams rotation continues to settle in then when Brooks comes back he should fit in much easier. At first he will come off the bench as our 6th man. Of course he wants his starting spot back and Adelman may give it back to him in time but when Yao comes back and if it becomes clear that Lowry was playing better as a starter for this specific team than Brooks will probably be relegated to 6th man.

So then we go from a team that was in complete turmoil, to a team that just has to adjust to fitting Yao in the mix. That is a lot easier to deal with that the latter. And if everyone accepts their roles we can contend for a championship maybe yet.

 

It's encouraging. I think it is a mix of reasons:

1) Fitness/game shape improving
2) Weaker opponents (even if the same team, they had a worse day)
3) Small sample size
4) Tightened Rockets rotation, so chemistry is improving
5) He got challenged on Twitter and wants to prove it to the haterz

 

I think twitter gate must have fired him up.

 

And the best of Lowry is not said by the numbers.
I keep saying he's my starting PG for the Rockets. We don't need more scoring with Yao, we need what he gives us. Defense, leadership, passing, competitiveness, a guy who improves his partners.

With more games, he would improve his confidence and shoot it better. Still, he's scoring, but this is the least of my worries on the starting PG of this team.