As Lowry remains vital for Heat, Raptors can only preach process and patience

TORONTO — Just to be clear: Kyle Lowry is planning to come back to Toronto.

And not just to sign a one-day contract and retire with the franchise where he spent nine seasons, made six all-star teams, guided the Toronto Raptors to seven playoff appearances and led them to the 2019 NBA title. That plan remains in place.

But Lowry wanted to world to know that in his mind there was no way the Miami Heat’s only visit to Scotiabank Arena this season would be his last chance to play against the Raptors, the franchise where the 18-year veteran made his name and remains revered.

His motor is still running. 

“No farewell today,” Lowry said when I asked him if he was considering retirement after this season. “Hell no. Not this year.”

Lowry can at least add winning in Toronto as a member of the Miami Heat to his Hall-of-Fame-worthy resume. Miami’s 112-103 win was the first time in three tries the Heat had won in Toronto with Lowry in uniform.

Lowry was for the most part a minor player in the drama. He finished with three points, four rebounds and three assists in his 28 minutes but was — as always it seems — plus-7 in a game his team won by nine points.

But the way the Raptors are going right now, it’s hard not be nostalgic for the old fella. It’s saying a lot about the current Raptors lineup that they could still benefit from Lowry on the floor. As the 2019 championship season ebbs into the distance, it's clear that the kind of tone Lowry set — with his smarts and competitiveness and willingness to drag his teammates into the fight — is something that is missing too. The Heat still appreciate it. He’s started all 20 of the games he’s been available for.

“[Lowry has] been really important for us this year, particularly because we’ve had a lot of moving parts,” said head coach Erik Spoelstra. “He’s given us a lot more of who he is and who has proven to be as a decorated champion over the course of his career… he knows how to play with the ball, without the ball. He knows how to impact the game defensively. He knows how to do a ton of winning plays when you get in close games and fourth quarters. That’s all that stuff we value, and it leads to winning.”

The Heat just seem to keep getting lucky like that. They’ve been getting excellent play out of rookie Jaime Jaquez Jr., the four-year senior from UCLA taken 18th overall. He was named the Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month for November and showed why as he crossed over Barnes and dunked on the Raptors star in the first quarter. Jaquez contributed 15 points in 32 minutes off the bench for Miami and was part of the closing lineup. Raptors rookie Gradey Dick, taken five spots higher in the same draft, is beginning to find his feet on his G-League assignment, but the 20-year-old appears to be miles away from being able to contribute in an NBA game the way the 22-year-old Jaquez is right now.

The loss is the Raptors’ second straight and fourth in five games, dropping them to 9-12 while the Heat improved to 12-9. The Raptors were fighting an uphill battle all game as they fell behind by 15 midway through the first quarter, 14 midway through the third quarter and then gave up a 9-2 run in the space of two minutes after fighting back to get within three points with 3:43 left.

What was more discouraging is that the Heat’s scores were generally the result of defensive breakdowns by the Raptors’ key players — Pascal Siakam and Dennis Schroder losing track of Heat sharpshooter Duncan Robinson in the corner for a triple that put the Heat up six with 2:44 to play, or Robinson slipping a screen and scoring on a lay-up that put the Heat up 10 with 1:43 to go while O.G. Anunoby, Schroder, and Siakam each looked at each other for an explanation.

“I thought that our discipline was not where it needs to be tonight…” said Rajakovic. “...We just did not do what we’re supposed to do there. So definitely it's concerning, definitely something that we're gonna look at the film and use the day tomorrow to watch the film, talk about it, practice and try to get better from this.”

Robinson — one of the Heat’s patented undrafted development success stories — finished with 21 points, second to Caleb Martin who scored 23 of his 24 points in the first half. The Heat shot 46.1 per cent from the floor and 14-of-38 from three. The Raptors were led by Siakam who finished with 30 points and six assists, while Anunoby added 23 points and six assists. The Raptors shot 43 per cent from the floor and 14-of-37 from deep but had 14 turnovers to the Heat’s seven. The Heat were playing without all-NBA defender Bam Adebayo, out with a hip injury, and another one of their leading scorers, Tyler Herro (ankle). 

Even if Lowry wasn’t exactly vintage on Wednesday night, retirement still feels like a ways away for the pending free agent who has started 20 of 21 games this season after being featured in trade rumours throughout the off-season.

“I want to play. I definitely want to play,” Lowry said. “I think I can still play at a high enough level where I can contribute to a team at a high level and the biggest thing for me is being able to stay healthy, and I’m still motivated to play. I still love this game, this game has given me so much and I feel like I can still help a team. That’s all I want to do, be able to play.”

Honestly, maybe the Raptors should bring him back. The Raptors’ foundation was supposed to be established and set when the team decided to amicably part ways with their franchise icon in the summer of 2021. The expectation was the Raptors could move on without him, and certainly that by now the soon-to-be 38-year-old point guard was unlikely to be a factor in the fastest, most competitive basketball league in the world.

At the same time the hope was that Precious Achiuwa — the prize the Raptors got in exchange for facilitating Lowry’s sign-and-trade deal with Miami — would have by now demonstrated that his boundless athleticism would translate into on-court production sooner rather than later.

Wrong on all counts. The post-Lowry Raptors seem as lost culturally as they were before he arrived. And Achiuwa? Well let’s just say that Lowry remains the more effective NBA player.

Not that anyone was under the illusion that the 24-year-old Achiuwa would ever be as impactful as Lowry in his prime, but the expectation was that, with the passage of time, the exceptionally mobile big man would have grown into a reliable NBA player over the course of three years in Toronto, and four in the league.

So far it hasn’t happened. Outside of the occasional flash where his speed, size and quickness come together in a tantalizing package, Achiuwa remains very much a prospect, if you’re being generous. The athleticism is there but figuring out how to put it together remains an issue.

“It’s a mindset. He needs to understand — and we had those talks — it’s not necessarily do you make a shot or miss a shot, it’s like everything that happens in between,” said Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic, who is as invested in Achiuwa finding his level as anyone in the organization. “How you run, how you’re guarding, rebounding, deflections, anything that’s controllable… he needs to be able to play through mistakes. If you miss a shot, bounce back and go to the next play.”

Achiuwa showed his upside during a useful eight-minute stint bridging the first and second quarters that started when he was spoon-fed for a pair of dunks, converted a much more difficult lay-up off a pass from Otto Porter Jr. and hit a wide open three-pointer from the corner in front of the Raptors bench. That pulled the Raptors back within five after they had fallen behind by 15 midway through the first quarter. It was part of a second surge that saw the Raptors go up by five on a drive by Anunoby before Toronto headed into the half with a 66-64 lead.

But that was it for Achiuwa. He was a non-factor in the second half and played just five minutes.

Meanwhile, Lowry — Achiuwa’s basketball opposite — is still somehow an essential player on a team that has NBA title aspirations, just like everyone predicted in 2023-24. He had a quiet first half save for somehow blocking his counterpart Schroder’s lay-up and hitting a three after a pump fake and stepping to his left, naturally.

In the third quarter Lowry had his fingerprints all over the Heat’s 16-0 run coming out of halftime. Lowry stole the ball from Schroder and set Jimmy Butler up for a score on the break, and he found Robinson for a wide-open dunk after the Raptors got their defensive coverages confused. The Heat led by 14 midway through the third quarter before the Raptors closed with a 13-5 run to cut the lead to 87-84 starting the fourth. It was perhaps no coincidence that both of the Heat’s big runs — starting the first quarter and starting the third — came with Lowry on the floor and the Raptors surges came when Lowry was on the bench.

As it relates to their own rookie and the development of Achiuwa, their return for the still very vital Lowry, the Raptors can only preach process and patience in a season that will require a good measure of both.

“It’s a challenge. Trust me, all of us… want to win right now and be the best right now but we got to understand it takes some time for guys to start clicking, to trust, to find a way they are really going to influence the team, to find the rhythm there,” said Rajakovic. “For me, the big picture and really understanding what we’re trying to achieve and how we want to develop our roster and our team, that for me is the most important thing. I don’t believe in skipping steps.”

Miami certainly seems to have that foundation set. After nearly a decade of building that foundation in Toronto, Lowry is now benefitting from what was already in place in Miami. His old team can only look on and wish.