TORONTO — Kyle Lowry leaned on the microphone podium, and with the sleeve of his T-shirt wiped the sweat from his eyebrow.
The Toronto Raptors didn’t practice Sunday, instead holding a team video session. And when the players piled out, Lowry headed upstairs to the practice court to work on his shooting.
The Raptors point guard had one of the worst games of his season in Saturday’s 93-86 overtime loss to Washington, and those who know him best say that won’t happen again.
"I have no doubt hat Kyle Lowry will come back and play at a level that he’s played at and has made him successful," said coach Dwane Casey. "That’s who he is, he’s a guy who plays better with a chip on his shoulder, he’s been doubted all his life since junior high school so I think he’ll bounce back.
"I don’t think shooting is where you rate him, I think making winning plays, defensive plays, draw and kick, not turning the ball over, those are the winning plays that he’s excellent at."
Lowry had just seven points on 2-for-10 shooting, plus four assists and three turnovers, and fouled out of the game with 2:36 left in regulation — the picture of the dejected point guard sitting alone on the bench, head in hands, said everything.
"Super difficult," he said, on sitting out the end of the game. "Just fouling out in general and not being able to be myself and help my teammates was definitely more frustrating than I wanted it to be. But that’s Game 1. You learn from your mistakes and you get better. That’s what the playoffs is about — adjustments."
Wizards guard Bradley Beal mockingly waved goodbye to Lowry when the whistle blew on his sixth foul.
"I would have done the same thing," Lowry said. "You get one of the best players off of the floor, you should be happy about it."
Lowry, DeMar DeRozan and Lou Williams — the team’s best scoring options — combined for a dreadful 12-46.
"I don’t think that’s going to happen (again)," Lowry said. "It’s something that happens once in a while, it happened to be in the playoffs and it sucks, because it’s more magnified, but, I think guys are going to keep taking the same shots and make (the) shots."
Greivis Vasquez took over at the point after Lowry fouled out and his three-pointer with 26 seconds left in regulation sent the game to overtime. Vasquez also believes the all-star point guard will be a different player come Tuesday’s Game 2.
"I’m not going to be shocked if Kyle came and had an unbelievable game on Tuesday. He knows how much we need him," Vasquez said. "I feel like we need to have a short memory. He needs to have a short memory. He needs to come to play and on Tuesday, and have fun — that’s the main thing. It’s not pressure. We all need to relax. We just have got to play our game."
While the Raptors’ shooting was uncharacteristically poor, their rebounding was about par for the season. The Wizards outhustled Toronto on the offensive glass especially, grabbing 19 offensive boards to the Raptors’ 10. Patrick Patterson said it was the lopsided rebounding performance was glaringly obvious in Sunday’s video session.
"(It was) not being physical enough with the bigs but also the guards as well, getting free looks at long rebounds, the ones that we couldn’t corral in the paint, the ones that bounce around the free throw line," said Patterson, who was solid off the bench with 10 points and five rebounds.
"I think it’s just always physicality, the guy’s on the perimeter, then you have to keep him from getting to the paint, and getting the ball first. But a lot of it was (Saturday) night just us turning our heads and looking at the ball and looking at the rim rather than worrying about our man not getting the ball."
The Raptors dropped a seven-point decision to the Brooklyn Nets in Game 1 last season, before taking the Nets to seven games.
The series moves to Washington for Game 3 on Friday and Game 4 on Sunday.
