No Nick Nurse, No Problem As Raptors Cruise Past Rockets

The Toronto Raptors rode a Kyle Lowry triple-double to victory while Nick Nurse and Pascal Siakam quarantined due to the NBA's COVID Health and Safety Protocols

Who needs a head coach when you have Kyle Lowry on your team?

The Toronto Raptors were without head coach Nick Nurse, five assistant coaches, and Pascal Siakam on Friday night and didn't miss a beat, knocking off the Houston Rockets 122-111 at Amalie Arena. 

OK, the Rockets might not be a particularly good NBA team these days. They're losers of their last 10 games and were almost run off the court by Toronto in the first half. But even so, the Raptors had little trouble against Houston even on one of the strangest nights in franchise history.

With Nurse out, Toronto turned to Sergio Scariolo who exited quarantine earlier in the day after coaching the Spanish Men's National Team at the EuroBasketball qualifiers in Poland. It was a wild week for the 59-year-old, the kind of week books are written about. 

"When I got back here I quarantined, I got tested every day, I traveled by myself to Miami, with a car, I stayed totally separated from the player, from the coaches," he said. "Then yesterday we had this kind of a situation coming out the end of the afternoon. I was working on preparing my section, working on the special teams preparation for this game and all of a sudden at the night I got a few texts and I realized that things were going to change."

With some remote help pre-game from the rest of the coaching staff, Scariolo put together a gameplan for Nurse's liking and went out there and executed it. Not only did he clinch his first career NBA game, but he won his first-ever coach's challenge getting a foul called against Chirs Boucher overturned in the second quarter. After the game, Lowry made sure to grab the game ball for him.

"Of course it was different, especially because everything happened so fast during today," Scariolo said. "[The] game was not that easy, right, at all, we had a couple of times, a chance to probably close it out, we didn't quite, But at the end of the day, I think it was a pretty good game for us."

It certainly didn't hurt having the 34-year-old Lowry running the show for stretches Friday night. There had been some hope that maybe he would player-coach for the game, but that notion was quickly shot down by Raptors general manager Bobby Webster who said it was against the NBA's Collective Bargaining Agreement to have a player coach.

"I don't know if we have the budget to add that to his resume," Webster joked pre-game.

Even Lowry admitted it wouldn't have been a good idea to let him coach.

"Yeah, it would awesome, but at the same time I probably wouldn't sub myself out," Lowry joked. "I'd be a tough coach and I wouldn't want to coach someone like me. So no, I'll pass on that."

He may not have had the head coaching title, but he was certainly a difference-maker, recording his 16th career triple-double with 20 points, 10 assists, and 11 rebounds against the Rockets. His final assist of the night came via a friendly flick to Fred VanVleet who put the dagger in Houston with a 3-pointer to put Toronto up nine.

Up Next: Chicago Bulls

The Raptors will stick around Tampa for a few more days and play host to the Chicago Bulls on Sunday night at 7 p.m. ET.