Excellent game for Kyle Lowry. His shot will come around, the rest of his game was solid. I like how Ish looked as well, I wish Rick would have waited a few more minutes before putting in K Low 7.
That is great.... Indeed, that has always been his weakness, I thought he might have turned a corner with his hot streak, but he has really struggled these last 6ish games. DD
Let's just go ahead and talk about the elephant in the room: the man isn't in very good shape. He's getting paid starter money but didn't put forth the effort in the offseason to condition himself to play starter minutes.
That's not the case. Kyle worked hard in the offseason coming into camp strong. A back injury and resulting spasms are the root cause of his issues....toss in the hamstring and voila....he's hurting.
Did you watch the game? Stats are good for some things but not always. Tonight for Lowry would be a great example... His 1-13 shooting including 0-7 from three was a lot of situational shots. He had two threes in rhythm that he missed... One layup he converted... Now onto the other 10 misses... 2 Jumpers with the shot clock at 3 seconds or less 1 Jumper off an offensive rebound to beat the 1st quarter buzzer 2 layups where he was clearly fouled (once by earl watson, one by deron) 2 Threes with the shot clock at 3 seconds or less 1 Three off the dribble to ensure a 2 for 1 at the end of a quarter 1 Three off the inbounds play with .2 seconds on the game clock at the end of the 4th 1 Three at the end of overtime when the game was already over one of those threes in the fourth quarter was a total clanker where he argued with the ref all the way down the court for a good twelve seconds so im assuming he believed he was fouled there as well... Now obviously you would like for him to convert on at least a few of those shots but for the most part he was taking shots because he was forced to, not because he was determined to shoot his way into the game... Onto Deron getting 15 assists... Lowry completely shut him down in the first quarter. 0-4, maybe 1 assist for Deron. Deron didnt really do much of anything until the end of the 4th and overtime when Millsap got hot. Deron would run a PnR with Millsap who would pop out and nail a jumper. He must have had at least 5 of those in the final 8 minutes of the game. The majority of his other assists came off of entry passes. Deron would dump it into the post (mostly to jefferson) who would either take one dribble and put up a hook shot or just turn and throw up a push shot over scola. Its not like Deron was running amok through the lane creating dunks and wide open layups for everyone on the floor. Deron getting 15 assists was because our bigs cant play a lick of D. If we would have knocked down any of our open shots, Lowry would have easily topped 10 assists as well... Lowry played a great game except for missing all those situational shots. He made a lot of great plays on the defensive end. Off the top of my head I can think of... 1. Reaching around Derons back in the fourth forcing him to dribble of his chest and subsequently into Battiers hands. Battier got the steal in the box score.. 2. After committing his lone turnover of the game, lowry came right back down on the defensive end and stripped millsap. The ball then rolled through Brad Millers legs, Brad fell down, and Millsap picked the ball back up and scored. 3. He straight up picked Derons pocket in the first resulting in a fast break and free throws 4. He hustled out to contest an open 3 by Deron in the first quarter and Millsap leaned into Kyle as he ran by just as Deron was about to launch the shot. Millsap got called for an offensive foul. Deron hit the shot but it didnt count because of Kyles hustle.. 5. Lowry stripped Earl Watson in the second quarter and wound up diving on the floor for the loose ball which rolled back to another Jazz player who quickly tried to flip the ball back to Watson only to have Courtney Lee take it away from behind. Lee gets the steal, Lowry does all the hard work... Im sure there are more but those are the ones I can remember without even trying... If you think Lowry had a bad game, you should probably watch one more time. But in the end, all that matters is we lost... again
Protip: when it takes a textwall to justify a player's performance, he had a bad game. It's actually worse that his pathetic 1-13 display came off of bad shots. As the PG he is responsible for running the offense and ensuring that good shots are taken. So he failed both as a floor general and also in his own offensive efforts.
Lowry's play last night proves my point. In the first half, he was dynamic, scrambling, pushing the tempo, forcing his way to the rim, collapsing the defense, and getting his mates good looks. We were up 14. Second half he doesn't play as aggressively, starts setting up the offense, we are playing a tough, smart playoff team who made it very difficult for our two top offensive options (Martin and Scola), and Lowry is jacking jumpers instead of piercing the defense and getting the layups and fouls. Granted, there were a couple plays where he went to the hole and the officials didn't call the OBVIOUS fouls. But he should have kept going to the rack instead of settling for the jumpers. Now, here's the thing. You guys can isolate a bad shooting night by Lowry and pile on all you want to. Lowry is a much improved shooter. He did have a bad shooting night last night, as Martin has had, as Brooks has had. The last couple games are not reflective of whether he is a good shooter or not. Lowry is an adequate shooter. That's it. Where he excels is when he breaks down the D and gets to the rim and facilitates ball movement. 75% of Lowry's points should come from layups and free throws. Even though he has had some good shooting nights that have helped us win games.......because he was hitting those shots......he was not playing to his optimal skillset. Yes, we do need a third scorer. So, we do need a healthy Brooks to shoot the ball and be the third option behind Martin and Scola. After Martin and Scola we are looking at Shane, Kyle, and Hill and none of them are true scorers. That is why Lowry has to be ultra-agressive and get to the rim. The foul calls will eventually come if he goes back to the 2009-2010 version and only uses his outside shooting when he is wide open and there is no defensive chase.
Sounds like the schedule to me :grin:. In all seriousness, its a different story going from 20 to 35 minutes a night. Just like with ariza last year, you can train, but yoi dont know until you go through it. DD and others alike have said how much we need both. I'm still one of the ones that says brooks should start because of his shot creation . He should also close game because of this. Its not a bad thing, its just a thing.
If you actually read what I wrote you would see Kyle took maybe one bad shot. Nearly every time he shot the ball, he was either fouled with a no call, or was forced to because of either the game clock or shot clock. If you think he failed as a floor general, then once again I'm not sure what game you were watching.. His role in the offense is to bring the ball up the court, dump it into the high post, and go set a back screen for martin, UCLA cut to the rim, or stand in the corner. Thats the role of the point guard in the read and react system. Its not a traditional offense that is reliant on the dribble drive and the pick and roll. Thats why you see games where our forwards and centers have 4+ assists... And again, just for the record, Lowry set up a good 10 open shots in the second half, none of which we converted. But there will be some days when the team shoots 37% from the field and Lowry will only wind up with 6 assists and people on here says he is crap. Then there will be games where we shoot 55% from the field and Lowry will get 15 assists and people on here will call him god. And the funny thing about it is Kyle probably won't do anything differently in those two games except watch his teammates make open shots...
Good post. I personally want him back on the bench and play fearless as he used to from the bench. He has been heart and soul of the bench. Love him when he is energetic and leads us into fast break points. On every miss, go zero to 60, that's why he was so special to this team. He can't be same guy without Brooks back.
Both Kyle and Aaron are shooting worse than Chase for the season, just have a think about that.... It is a make or miss league, we need to start making again..... DD
I would tend to blame the sore hamstring more than a "minutes bump" when he's been handling the minutes just fine for nearly a month. I sincerely doubt that all of a sudden the minutes are catching up to him. That said, I haven't been able to watch the past few games. I'll have a better idea on his struggles after the next few games.
im not the analytical type but: rockets suck donkey ass! ive been somewhat understanding of this season and the last 10 yrs as a rockets fan but last night was the boiling point against the ****ing jazz! we have 0 heart 0 want 0 anything!!!!!!!!!! im mad as ****! i morey we trust my ass!!
