TORONTO -- They only needed 11 ugly games before figuring it out.
Now one win away from the Eastern Conference finals, Toronto Raptors guards Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan sat next to each other at the podium on Thursday and laughed -- a reporter had asked them why exactly things had gone better this time.
They had to know this question was coming. For weeks, Lowry and DeRozan have been saying that they knew their offense would come around, and that they had no choice but to keep shooting. Entering the game, the two All-Stars were both shooting 33 percent.
"I couldn't tell you," DeRozan said after the two of them stopped laughing. "We just tried to go out there, be aggressive. We've been aggressive these past two series and shots just weren't dropping for us. We just told ourselves we're just going to continue to be aggressive and it was going to come back around."
A cliche, wrapped in self-belief and inside ... uh, honesty? To Lowry and DeRozan, this really has been simple all along, even when the point guard admitted that his struggles were "mind-boggling." The entire basketball world knew they were not playing to their capabilities, and they knew they had to stay confident.
In Game 5 against the Miami Heat, DeRozan scored 34 points on 11-for-22 shooting, making his only 3-point attempt and all 11 of his free throws. He did so while battling a thumb injury. Lowry added 25 points, 10 rebounds, six assists, three steals, a block and the two biggest shots of the game, going 9-for-25 and 4-for-9 from deep. He did so with two bandages on his face, covering cuts on his eyelids -- coach Dwane Casey said he looked like a boxer. The two of them scored 20 of Toronto's 24 fourth-quarter points, lifting the team to a 99-91 victory.
"They're our guys," Casey said. "I mean, we can disparage 'em all we want to and talk about how bad their shooting is, but again, you don't forget how to score the basketball. It's gonna come back. When? You hope it's within the series. But it's gonna come up. And we have faith in those guys. They've carried us the entire season. Not one time did we doubt their ability."
Of course, the road to this win was rocky. It wouldn't have been a Raptors playoff game if it wasn't. "I think we just like drama for some reason," DeRozan said last week, and he has been proven right again and again. Toronto scored the first nine points of the game, swarming Miami defensively and getting out on the break. The Heat cut a 16-point lead to 10 at the end of the first frame, though, punishing the Raptors as soon as Lowry went to the bench.
Toronto's lead swelled to 20 points in the second quarter, thanks in part to a sequence where center Bismack Biyombo sandwiched a block on Dwyane Wade in between two massive dunks of his own. After Biyombo gave Wade a finger wag and the crowd a Usain Bolt "To Di World" pose, Miami scored the last 10 points of the first half and the first three of the third quarter.
"We gotta make sure we don't relax before halftime or end of quarter," Casey said. "That's been our biggest nemesis."
For a wire-to-wire win, there was a lot of tension. Toronto forward DeMarre Carroll and Heat forward Luol Deng both left the game in the third quarter when they hurt their wrists. Neither would return. In the fourth, DeRozan went to the locker room because he'd aggravated his thumb injury.
"It just felt like a blowtorch on my hand," DeRozan said. "That's all."
Heat rookie Josh Richardson made three 3-pointers in the fourth quarter, and Wade provided his typical heroics, calmly hitting a midrange jumper and two free throws to cut the deficit to one point. With under a minute left, though, Lowry was the one throwing daggers.
First came the step-back 3-pointer, a difficult shot Lowry attempted despite missing 13 of his previous 16 shots. He held his follow through, beat his chest and strutted to the bench when the Heat called timeout. Wade answered with an elbow jumper that only superstars make, then Lowry put the game away. He drove left, created contact with Richardson and had enough space to get off a jumper. In it went, as if he had never been slumping.
"My guy over here [DeRozan] just told me to be big and be aggressive and be me," Lowry said.
Hours before taking a 3-2 series lead, Lowry said it was "scary" that he and DeRozan hadn't gotten going. DeRozan said that "it's going to come at the right point in time when we definitely need it." They know the opportunity in front of them now, despite everything they have gone through. The Raptors have never been to the conference finals in their 21-year history, and their stars want to change that. It could happen Friday in Miami.
The Heat, though, are treading in familiar territory. Two weeks ago they went to Charlotte down 3-2 and won Game 6 in dramatic fashion, with Wade nailing clutch 3-pointers. That same night, Toronto went to Indiana with a chance to advance. Game 6 was the Raptors' worst game of the playoffs, a 101-83 blowout.
Given how the series has gone, all signs point to Miami forcing another Game 7 at the Air Canada Centre. These two teams have played almost evenly, and Toronto has not exactly proven to be great at putting its foot down. As Lowry and DeRozan showed, though, trends can be reversed swiftly. Maybe, just maybe, Game 5 was the start of something different.
