Lowry on Kawhi – "I do not help enough"

None of the referees seemed to see the game and the game continued without stopping. Lowry has a story with Simmons, as both players were sent off from a match in Philadelphia in January and had trouble late in the game in Philadelphia last season. Simmons apologized to Lowry at halftime.

"Yes, he said it at half-time," Lowry told ESPN. "Said that he did not want to." Scott [Foster, the referee] did not call him on the floor. It's not like I'm going to linger or shit about it. It's happened. It's over now.

"We had our ass kicked in. It did not matter."

When asked if Lowry thought the league should consider the game for possible retroactive sanction, he told ESPN: "Personally, I'm not going to expand on it." We have bigger things to fry that something that happened in the first [half] or whatever. "

Leonard and Siakam (20 points) did their part. Danny Green (13 points in 34 minutes) was not bad either. Lowry and Gasol, on the other hand – five and three stars, respectively – failed to match production to their glittering resume. Both seemed passive. Gasol earned 2 points out of 6 and scored seven points while recording a minus 26 in 29 minutes.

At the same time, Philadelphia achieved top performances by Joel Embiid (33 points, 10 rebounds, 3 assists and 5 blocks) and Jimmy Butler (22 points, 9 rebounds and 9 assists) and the five starters finished double digit.

"We are disinterested and we need to be more selfish," Lowry told ESPN. "We have to help Kawhi and Pascal, score more and be a little more assertive.

"We are just very – we are passive, we are too passive for a fault."

Raptors coach Nick Nurse would agree with him. After the match, the Raptors would have no chance to return to the series if his team did not show up with more effort and energy in Match 4 on Sunday afternoon.

"Yes, I think we were outclassed in just about every area in which we could be outmatched," Nurse said. "Nothing in physics, energy, cuts, twists, passes – you know, all kinds of things like that – we've been completely outmatched, and it's been a long time. We have not seen this team play this way.

"I think at the first adjustment, we'll have to do it, I guess we'll have to play all harder, we'll have to play a lot more physically." I mean, if we do not do it, the prettiest things we decided to do offensively will not matter anymore. "

In addition to Leonard – who was spectacularly defeated, finishing with 33 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists while he was trying to keep Toronto in the game – Toronto's performance could not be described as pretty. In addition to Leonard, Siakam and Green, the Raptors combined 10 for 36 ground, including 2 for 14 to 3.

Most of this burden, however, rests on Lowry. He is the only one responsible for the playoff failures in Toronto in recent years – after the dismissal of Dwane Casey and the exchange of DeMar DeRozan against Leonard last summer.

He has been to this place before. His teams have been in the playoffs. He has been criticized for his game in the bad defeats of the Raptors.

However, he was not there when he played alongside Leonard, whom Toronto specifically traded to try to raise the Raptors to places they have never been to.