TORONTO — Nothing was going to stop Toronto Raptors cornerstones Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan on Wednesday.
Not injuries. Not their previous shooting struggles. Not the Miami Heat. Nothing.
Lowry and DeRozan may have been banged up, but in this ugly, gut-it-out series they were determined to gut it out and carry their team to victory. Lowry sported cuts over both his eyes, prompting Raptors coach Dwane Casey to say afterward that his 30-year-old point guard looked like a boxer. DeRozan said it felt like someone was using a blowtorch on his injured right thumb. No matter.
After scoring just 19 points combined in Game 4, Lowry and DeRozan put the Raptors on their backs in Game 5, scoring a combined 59 points as Toronto took a 3-2 lead in its second-round match up with the Miami Heat following a 99-91 win in front of 20,155 at Air Canada Center.
Game 6 is Friday night in Miami.
“They’re our guys. We can disparage them all we want and talk about how bad their shooting is, but you don’t forget how to score the basketball,” Casey said of his starting back court duo, which came in shooting just 33.1 percent from the field in the playoffs — the worst percentage for any starting back court pair in the past two decades, according to research by ESPN Stats & Information.
“It’s going to come back. When? You hope it’s within this series, but it’s going to come back,” Casey continued. “We have faith in those guys. They carried us the entire season, and now one time we doubt their ability to score the basketball. And now they have to ramp it up again for the next game.” Lowry finished with 25 points, 10 rebounds and six assists in 41 minutes, while DeRozan tied his postseason career high with 34 points in 34 minutes.
DeRozan went 11-for-22 from the field and 11-for-11 from the free-throw line. During stoppages, a Raptors trainer tied his right thumb with a red shoelace — a “$1,000 shoelace,” he called it — to keep the swelling down. DeRozan aggravated the injury in the fourth quarter and went back to the locker room briefly before returning.
“There’s nothing else I can do about it but just try and play through it the best way I can and just deal with it later,” said DeRozan, who shot 4-for-17 from the field in Game 4. The duo combined for 20 of Toronto’s 24 points in the final period.
The Raptors once led by 20 points, but with that advantage nearly gone late in the fourth quarter, Lowry delivered a stretch in which he caused a Goran Dragic turnover and drained a clutch 3-pointer and fade away jumper to keep Miami at bay and seal the deal. He had hit two of his previous 14 shots in the second half prior to going off at the end.
“I want this more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my NBA career — besides a ring,” Lowry told ESPN.com. “My teammates, my organization and DeMar have confidence in me to make big shots, and I want to take big shots. I can live with people saying they’re bad shots or good shots. I can live with that. I’m happy with anything that comes with it — good, bad or not.” Lowry and DeRozan set the tone in Game 5, ripping off 19 points in the first quarter — the same total they scored all of Game 4.
“Our team feeds off our energy,” Lowry said. “Everything we do, they look at and they want to be a part of it. For us, it’s just about continuing to be aggressive.”
Their 59 points were tied for the most Lowry and DeRozan have combined to score in a playoff game (2014 first round vs. the Nets). They each had as many as 20 points in a postseason game for the first time since Game 3 of their first-round series with Indiana. Most NBA teams are better when their best players are playing like their best players. The Raptors are no exception.
Big man Bismack Biyombo proved to be a force in the paint, finishing with 10 points, six rebounds and four blocks, while Miami’s Dwyane Wade (20 points on 6-for-14 shooting) was held in check until the fourth and received little help from his supporting cast. “I think it speaks for itself. The energy that he brings on both ends is amazing,” DeRozan said of Biyombo’s impact. “Especially when he did the Usain Bolt [celebration]. That type of thing gets us going, honestly. When Bismack is out there just being himself, showing his charisma, that kind of gets us going.”
Toronto now braces for the MRI results on forward DeMarre Carroll, who suffered a contusion on his left wrist in the third quarter and did not return. Another injury is not what the Raptors need. Not with center Jonas Valanciunas already out for the remainder of the series due to a sprained right ankle.
Nevertheless, they’re officially one victory away from the franchise’s first trip to the Eastern Conference finals. Given what they’ve been through in this bizarre postseason, that’s pretty impressive. “Close-out games are always the toughest games,” said Lowry, referring to Toronto’s blowout loss in Indiana in Game 6. “But I think we know what we have to do, and I think we’re focused on what we have to do.”