The Toronto Raptors are streaking early in the season, and Kyle Lowry is crediting their hot start, in part, to the increased spacing the team is playing with this season. They’re embracing an innovative positionless style of basketball under new head coach Nick Nurse, and Lowry is crediting his teammates with how well the team is playing offensively.

“My teammates are making shots – it’s got nothing to do with me,” Kyle Lowry told Reid Forgrave of CBS Sports. “What we’ve done the past couple years spacing-wise, the big fella (Jonas Valanciunas) stepping out, having Serge (Ibaka) at the 5, having positionless basketball, helps a lot. We’re just trying to continue to grow and work towards being the best team we can be later in the season. I enjoy winning games. So I enjoy it.”

The Raptors used to be at the forefront of teams that relied on the mid-range game, but that era of Toronto basketball is long gone. They began embracing the pace-and-space style last season with Dwane Casey, but they’ve taken it to another level with Nurse leading the charge.

Nurse has been changing up lineups depending on matchups, and he too credited spacing some of the early success for both Kyle Lowry and the Raptors.

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“His instincts to play hard almost amaze me nightly,” Nurse said about Lowry. “We’ve got an energetic team. We’ve got a deep team. That’s what we’re trying to do, play a bunch of guys and play with energy. (Lowry) really has got a lot of great alertness. He’s really into the games. You can see how locked in he is. That’s common for him. But again, he’s just seeing a lot more opportunities to deliver the ball to a variety of people. That is different. It’s spacing. He’s just seeing a lot more opportunities to dish the ball off to people this year. The spacing’s gotta be a big reason for it. His vision of what he’s seeing out there is changing a little bit.”

Backup point guard Fred VanVleet also brought up spacing when discussing Lowry’s success and how it has been a catalyst for the offense. Lowry’s strong start is even garnering some early-season MVP whispers. As a rule, be skeptical of MVP chatter this early in the season, but that shouldn’t diminish how incredible Lowry’s start has been. He’s averaging 17.9 points to go along with a league-leading 11.5 assists per game.

Toronto’s commitment to increased spacing is a huge reason for its 10-1 start to the season and first-place record in the Eastern Conference.