BROOKLYN, N.Y.—The fact the opposition was the worst team in the NBA didn’t mean a thing to the stumbling and bumbling Toronto Raptors on Sunday.
They needed a win, no matter the competition. And Kyle Lowry, flu-ridden and stitched up, made it happen.
After missing Saturday’s practice because he wasn’t feeling well, and sliced for a four-stitch cut on his right forearm after running into a camera mounted on a basket stanchion early in the game, Lowry had 15 points, 11 assists and 11 rebounds as the Raptors beat the Brooklyn Nets 103-95 at the Barclays Center.
It was the ninth career triple-double for Lowry, who racked up 40 minutes because the Raptors were once again without DeMar DeRozan (ankle) and Patrick Patterson (knee).
The win momentarily halts an ugly slide by the Raptors, who had lost eight of their 10 previous games and fallen to fifth in the Eastern Conference.
That it came over the 9-42 Nets won’t matter at all. The Raptors needed to ease some of the frustration that’s been mounting as they plummet down the standings.
“A lot of guys are frustrated, as everybody should be,” coach Dwane Casey said before the game. “You want them to be frustrated. I want them to be frustrated.
“Nobody’s jumping up and down and chirping and happy and whistling Dixie, or whatever. Everybody knows this is our job, this is our profession. We’re all professionals. We’ve got to fight through it.”
Lowry led that fight with a typically dominant game; when the Nets closed to within six late in the third quarter, he found Jonas Valanciunas with a perfect lob pass for a momentum-killing dunk, and finished his triple-double a minute later with his 10th rebound of the game. It was part of a lightning-quick run that put the game away for the Raptors.
Valanciunas finished with 22 points to lead the Raptors, while Terrence Ross celebrated his 26th birthday with a 17-point game.
Brook Lopez had 20 points for the Nets.
The Toronto Star and thestar.com, each property of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, One Yonge Street, 4th Floor, Toronto, ON, M5E 1E6. You can unsubscribe at any time. Please contact us or see our privacy policy for more information.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
