NBA: 10 Thoughts As The Stretch Run Begins
By Evan Dyal
Kyle Lowry’s Injury Impact On The Raptors
Beside the Kevin Durant Injury, this is the most disappointing loss. I loved the Raptors additions at the trade deadline of Serge Ibaka and P.J Tucker. Both of them give the Raps some much-needed, defense, spacing, versatility and toughness. I thought the additions of them would mean the Raptors would take off and get the 2 seed in the East.
It also made them the greatest threat to Cleveland in the East.
Then Kyle Lowry got hurt, and he is likely to miss the rest of the regular season. Now the Raptors are good enough to survive this, but it likely rules out them getting the 2 seed. It likely means they will fall to the 4th seed in the East. This means they will get Cleveland in the second round instead of the Conference Finals.
If Kyle Lowry is back to his normal self by them, they can push Cleveland to 6, possibly even 7, but they can’t beat them. Another downside of this is we won’t see a Boston-Toronto playoff series, which I think could have been epic.