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Lowry finished with 30 points, five rebounds and six assists, but none of those numbers encapsulate just how pivotal he was to this 123-117 win.
As good as he was individually though, Lowry wasn’t even the story of the night.
Bear with us, it was a convoluted evening.
The game began with a perfectly 2020-21 moment … and then it got even a little crazy even by those standards.
All the pre-game talk was of how the Raptors would attempt to defend the big three as Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden were laying waste to defences around the league when the trio actually played.
But in a year when only the most overly optimistic actually make any concrete plans with a worldwide pandemic playing havoc with all lives, that talk was temporarily set aside as Durant was unable to start the game because of contact tracing, though it wasn’t a potential positive test by the Nets star, but someone he was associated with.
In any event, Durant was back on the floor 7:43 into the game and the Big Three were re-united, presumably because the contact tested negative. More about that later.
But in Durant’s absence, the Raptors established their rhythm setting a high pace to the game that benefited them and that carried over.
The Raptors were aggressive from the tip, led by Norman Powell, who was in attack mode from the outset. Pascal Siakam was as well, but when his drives started to come up empty he became more of a distributor, leading to another batch of scoring opportunities for the visitors.
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