107 minutes.
That’s roughly how long after the final buzzer sounded that Kyle Lowry finished up a late-night shooting session on the Air Canada Centre on Tuesday night. Donned in a black hoodie and black shorts, compressions still on his knees, Lowry shot alone in a mostly empty, 19,000-seat arena, private with everything from his thoughts to his mechanics. It was a solemn sight, the downtrodden hero trying to find himself, a superstar rendered merely “good” with his jump-shot missing in action during the most important stretch of his career. If he winds up turning things around, Tuesday night’s scene would factor in prominently to the story’s montage.
This session was his second following the team’s Game 1 loss. Immediately after the game, Lowry went to the team’s third-floor practice court, delaying his media availability to get shots up. Temporarily cooling down in a black tank top, Lowry spoke openly with reporters about his errant shooting and the toll it’s taking.
“It’s very tough but at the end of the day I’m not going to beat myself up,” Lowry said, the latter sentiment unconvincing. “There’s definitely a feel and trying to get the touch back. I don’t know where it’s at. It’s kind of mind-boggling right now. It’s frustrating. I’m not going to shy away from the criticism or anything. I want to continue to be aggressive, shoot shots and take the onus. I know I’m not playing well at all.”
A security staffer rebounded for him for a time, but Lowry was mostly content to collect his own make, jab-step, fire a corner three, collect his make, pull-up from the elbow, collect his make. Lowry’s not alone in his battle through what can now be considered an extended slump – teammates decidedly have his back and are adamant he’ll come through it, and soon – but as the cold stretch turns from physical to mental, the search for answers can become isolating, no matter how much support there is.
“I tell him all the time, good or bad, I got the utmost confidence in him,” DeMar DeRozan, who dealt with a slump in the first round himself, said. “I don’t care if he miss 15 shots in a row, I’mma stand behind him just like if he making 15 shots in a row. It’s gonna come around. It just sucks that we all had to go through this at this point in time of the season.”
DeRozan wasn’t out there shooting with Lowry, but he probably would have been, had Lowry asked. But this is the point guard’s struggle. Lowry wants to be dominating, and seems acutely aware that he is the team’s beating heart. He insists that the elbow he had drained in March, which limited extension on his shot initially, isn’t the root cause, and his late-night workout would seem to confirm his health is fine. And despite some arbitrary endpoints suggesting he was cold late in the season, too, depending on where you draw the line, he was anything but – he shot 41 percent on 39 3-point attempts in five April games, for example.
He is Toronto during All-Star Weekend cold now.
He also has a career’s worth of evidence suggesting this isn’t the real him, that this is just a blip, or a case of the yips, and that he can expect regression eventually. It’s not easy to just trust that process, though, with the sample so small and the leverage so high in the postseason. Lowry’s decision-making in the pick-and-roll and when faced with an open look is beginning to suffer a little, and that’s something the Raptors can’t afford to have happen.
“We got out of one series with me not playing well, not shooting the ball well. But we have to get out of this next series, and I have to play better and shoot the ball better, score the ball better,” Lowry said. “Playoffs is all eyes are on you. It sucks to be playing this bad with all eyes on me. I know I’m way better than this. So I have to pick this shit up.”
Lowry is way better than this. Last round, Lowry credited the Pacers with speeding him up, with the defense of George Hill and the high hedges of the Pacer bigs forcing him to shoot more quickly, and more off the dribble. Even given that explanation, Lowry shot poorly, and the shots he missed against Miami on Tuesday were largely on the easier end of the spectrum (he was 2-of-11 on uncontested looks). His shot mix for the playoffs does look a little more difficult – a few catch-and-shoots traded in for pull-ups, and some more late-clock bailouts – but he’s also had a steady diet of open looks.
No matter which 3-point shooting bin you look at, Lowry is shooting worse. That’s both encouraging because yes, he’s much better, and maddening because the Raptors are already doing a reasonable job of getting him good shots.
His extra shooting time – he and DeRozan shot alone in an empty ACC the night before Game 7 against the Pacers, too – suggests it’s not a mechanical issue. The shots are dropping regularly in some situations, and there’s no visible hitch or change in his release in games. A potential solution, then, is to keep putting in that work until whatever it is he feels in practice bleeds into game action.
“I”ll probably keep shooting. I’ll hang out here a bit and be in the gym. Just try to get back to enjoying it and being in the gym having fun and being in there,” Lowry said between sessions. “It’s crazy, yeah. I shoot the ball well when I’m by myself. It’s a big difference when you’re by yourself than when you’ve got 10 guys out there.”
Prescribing a cure for a slump of any kind is difficult, particularly once it reaches the stage of being a psychological hurdle, as it appears to have with Lowry. He’s putting the shots up, and they’re falling. He’s getting clean in-game looks, and they’re not. Anyone who claims to have the answer is bluffing or speaking anecdotally, because there is no proven solution beyond just letting things take their course.
“The only way to get out of a slump is to keep shooting,” says Patrick Patterson, who dealt with his own slump early in the year. “His shot’s just not falling. He’s missing shots he’s made all season long. He’s made a lot tougher shots. For some reason the ball just doesn’t seem to want to go in the basket right now. Kyle’s Kyle. He’ll be completely fine.”
Momentum’s a strange thing. It could be as simple as a single big shot restoring confidence and turning the brain off, with the ketchup bottle theory dictating that the baskets will flow more easily from there. Lowry hit a massive shot Tuesday, tying the game on a ridiculous half-court buzzer-beater to force overtime, his lone make of the night. That doesn’t stand as much of a reprieve, as it was a half-court heave, not at all the type of shot he normally takes or the ones he’s now missing.
The important thing for the Raptors over the last eight games is that Lowry hasn’t been playing poorly despite shooting poorly. He was hardly at his best in Game 1, but he was a major factor against Indiana, and his defense and playmaking are paramount even when his shot is Elsa levels of frigid. It’s not surprising that the Raptors still managed to outscore Miami with Lowry on the floor, with the team cratering whenever he hit the bench. He’s a star, not a shooting specialist.
“Even though he didn’t shoot the ball well, there were situations there down the stretch he got stuff done,” Dwane Casey said. “I thought his bulldog tenacity set the tone for us defensively. We know he’s not shooting the ball well, he’s not making shots that he normally makes. It’s like a hitter, hitters go through slumps and he’s there. I do believe in him and he’s going to come out of it.
“As long as he does the things he did at the end of the game defensively, making plays, screening, tough rebounds, putbacks and stuff like that, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a jump shot.”
But like Lowry said, the Raptors need him to score better to beat the Heat on most nights. The task is simply too large, the margin for error too small against a team as good, as disciplined, and as experienced as Miami. They need Lowry’s shots to start dropping.
That could very well be coming, and there should be more faith in his 1,438-shot three-year sample (37.1 percent) than 32 career playoff games (25.8 percent) that point to some sort of playoff flaw. Lowry is a good shooter, and that should eventually make itself obvious. It’s just a question of when, and how Lowry can speed along the process.
“I haven’t shot the ball well for a while now. Whatever. I have to find it and have fun. Be more aggressive maybe, be less aggressive,” Lowry offered, talking to himself as much as reporters. “Just find a way to just be myself. “
