Kyle Lowry is picking up where he left off before being forced out of action with a wrist injury after the All-Star break: by playing a lot of basketball.
Lowry returned to the Toronto Raptors’ rotation on Wednesday night, making his first appearance since Feb. 15, just before All-Star Weekend. And he played 42 minutes.
Forty. Two. Minutes.
Players coming back from seven-week stints on the shelf typically return to minutes restrictions. Not Lowry. The Raptors needed all 42 of his minutes, just as they needed all 27 of his points and 10 of his assists, to beat the Detroit Pistons.
Afterward, Lowry revealed why he was able to play so much right out of the gate, per Real Sports’ Payal Doshi:
“Ain’t no minutes restrictions for me,” – Kyle Lowry on being back to help the Raptors execute the win with 27 points & 10 assists!
— Payal Doshi (@PayalDoshiTV) April 6, 2017
This checks out.
Lowry’s situation is a little different, because he’s returning from a wrist injury that, by his own admission, he was basically playing through for a while. Still, this is mostly impressive and a tiny bit reckless. It’s like a 95-5 split, or something.
If Kyle Lowry’s return to the rotation ultimately goes as smoothly as it did Wednesday, Toronto’s onset collapse notwithstanding, the Raptors are going to be hella scary once the postseason tips off. They already have the NBA’s third-best defensive rating since the All-Star break, according to NBA.com, and Lowry is only going to make them better on both sides of the floor.