What The Absolute Hell Was Kyle Lowry Doing?

It was possible to miss this in realtime. I did. For one thing, it happened quickly, and devolved quickly into distracting chaos. For another, even if your eyes gathered the information and transmitted it whole to your brain, your brain may have processed it as an error and erased it, because it is just impossible to believe. Kyle Lowry, in a one-possession playoff game, with 20 seconds left on the clock, tried to nutmeg Sixers defender Tobias Harris, with predictable results:

The busted, ridiculous play somehow ended with a wide open Danny Green attempt from beyond the arc, which missed. That’s a terrific shot for the offense, and the Sixers are extremely lucky that Green missed it:

Karma did that, and nothing should ever convince you otherwise. Under no circumstances did the Raptors deserve to tie the game on a possession where their veteran point guard tried to go between the legs of a defender at the top of the key and had to salvage his own disastrous mistake by desperately falling on the ball. Frankly, that the ball even found its way to Green for a clean look at a potential game-tying shot is pure luck, and pulled Lowry off the hook when what he deserves is a thorough shredding. This kind of thing will not help his reputation as a good-as-hell regular season player who turns into a basket-case come the playoffs. For all that Philadelphia’s defense did right in this game, the Raptors had a real chance to steal a win in Game 2. Lowry’s absurd and doomed trickery wasn’t how they lost, but also what in the absolute hell was he thinking. Man.