The Toronto Raptors enjoyed an emphatic victory over the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday. While Kyle Lowry was their star of the night, it was Toronto's suffocating defense that led them to the 107-92 victory over the No. 1 team in the West.
According to Lowry, Raptors head coach Nick Nurse initially intended to ease them back into the remaining eight games of the regular season. However, the 6-foot guard also said the Raptors just have too many guys with competitive fire in them to just chill around during these seeding contests. Likewise, playing a team projected to dethrone them like the Lakers only added some extra motivation to Lowry's Raptors to give it their all:
“Nick says he’s gonna ease us back in and use (seeding games as) exhibition,” Lowry said, per Eric Koreen of The Athletic. “But our competitive spirit, we have too many competitive guys out there that want to go out there and play and hoop and win games, especially playing against a team like the Lakers, a team that is No. 1 in the West. The competitive juices get going.”
Nurse applauded his star point guard's performance on Saturday night, highlighting all the things he brought to the table for the team:
“He was vintage Kyle tonight,” Nurse added. “He was scoring and flying around and taking charges and competing and getting us some critical buckets and keeping things ticking over. He was great.”
Lowry erupted for a game-high 33 points and grabbed a career-best 14 rebounds in the Raptors' victory. He made 8-of-16 from the field and also converted five triples, including the biggest on the night, a dagger to put them up 11 with three minutes remaining in the game.
Toronto is now 47-18 on the season, which is an amazing accomplishment after losing Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green.
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