Kyle Lowry breaks slump to give Raptors 2-1 lead on Heat

MIAMI — Kyle Lowry’s slump — which goes back to late March — continued early in Game 3 against the Miami Heat on Saturday.

Lowry missed his first two shots, and at that point he had missed 94 of his 135 shots taken in the playoffs.

But then Lowry made his next two shots. Maybe his jump shot was not broken beyond repair. Maybe his right elbow isn’t the problem.

Then the third quarter arrived, and Lowry made consecutive three-pointers. That from a guy who was 2-for-14 on 3s in the previous two games and was 9-of-60 on three-pointers for the playoffs.

Lowry kept scoring — 15 points in the third quarter and 14 in the fourth, and he finished with a team-high 33 points, leading Toronto to a 95-91 victory against Miami.

"This is the Kyle I know," said teammate and good friend DeMar DeRozan, who has struggled offensively in the playoffs, too.

Lowry made 11-of-19 shots from the field, including 5-of-8 three-pointers, and they were meaningful shots.

A three-pointer giving Toronto an 80-78 lead. Another making it 85-82 Toronto. A jump shot with Dwyane Wade guarding him, putting the Raptors head 89-86.

"I looked up and was like, 'Oh, you’re going to put D-Wade on me,' " Lowry said.

During an important stretch of the fourth quarter — from 5:15 to 1:34 — Lowry scored 12 consecutive Raptors points.

"It felt like it was just a matter of time for me to shoot the shots and for them to go down," Lowry said. "I have been getting encouragement from my teammates and people around me. It was just a matter of time before the shots fell."

Raptors coach Dwane Casey put it this way: "We needed Kyle to be Kyle."

The Raptors took a 2-1 lead in the series and will have a difficult time advancing if Lowry doesn’t play at an All-Star level. At the All-Star break, Lowry averaged 21 points, 6.3 assists and 4.9 rebounds and shot 42.5% from the field and 39.2% on three-pointers.

But he struggled in the final three weeks of the season, even as the Raptors wrapped up the regular season with a franchise-record 56 victories, the first time the Raptors reached 50 wins.

From March 20 through the final regular-season game on April 13, Lowry shot 32.1% from the field and 32.9% on three-pointers. He had fluid drained from his right elbow on March 28, and his shooting woes continued into the playoffs.

Through it all, Lowry has handled the questions and criticism.

"I never doubt myself," he said. "I just go out there and play. At the end of the day, I can live with everything that people say about me. I still have the opportunity to play basketball for a living and have fun with it. There is no such thing as doubting yourself.

"You just go out there and do what you’ve done since you were 5 years old. I just have fun and worry about how I can help my team."

One game doesn’t mean he emerged on the other side of the slump. But it was a start, and if the Raptors continue to get that production from Lowry and scoring from DeRozan, they might be playing in the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in franchise history.

Follow Jeff Zillgitt on Twitter @JeffZillgitt.

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