‘Things are not going well’
Raptors players, coach play down speculation about infighting
A day after another tough loss sparked some frank talk and got tongues wagging about the togetherness of the squad, the Raptors — led by Kyle Lowry — played down any speculation of infighting.
After the Raptors had blown a 16-point lead in the fourth quarter against Detroit, Lowry, the team’s three-time all-star point guard and top player, had lamented: “(We) keep putting us in the same situations over and over and not being successful, something has to give, something has to change.” He then added when asked if he knew what specifically needed to be altered: “I have an idea but I’m going to keep my mouth shut, keep it professional,” Lowry said.
The comments were taken as a shot at head coach Dwane Casey, who Lowry butted heads with earlier in their Toronto tenures.
Tom Sterner, an assistant coach under Casey in both Toronto and Minnesota, told TSN Radio 1050: “I think he’s pointing the comments at Casey.”
Not so fast, Lowry said after a spirited practice on Monday.
“No, they were not directed at anyone, they were in general.
“They were in general and they were moreso for me saying, ‘OK we’ve got to change things and myself get better and hold the guys accountable more,’ ” Lowry said.
‘That’s from me. I don’t do anything but play basketball. I don’t make management decisions, I don’t make coaching decisions, I say what I feel from my heart. That’s how I felt. Changes do need to me made. We need to find ways to win some damn games.”
DeMarre Carroll said he didn’t think Lowry was calling out the coach and Casey took the high road, pointing to stress from the string of losses.
“We are all frustrated. I take that as frustration,” Casey said. “Kyle and I, we have a husband and wife relationship. It’s good and bad. We go at each other. But we know at the end of the day, we are in the foxhole together.
“I didn’t take that one way whatsoever as a slight, as a negative. We’re all frustrated, I’m frustrated, his teammates are all frustrated. I didn’t take that as a personal slight or throwing me under the bus.”
Still, there is an edge around this group right now coinciding with the season going sideways. Toronto has dropped 10 of 14 heading into Tuesday’s game at Chicago. The Bulls expect to be without superstar and noted Raptor-killer Jimmy Butler, future hall-of-famer Dwyane Wade and sometime starter Nikola Mirotic, but that doesn’t guarantee a cure for what ails the Raptors. After all, Chicago has had a mystifying mastery over the Raptors, winning the past 10 meetings.
During the preparation the media is allowed to see, there was a noticeable change in tone shown by the players. They were going at each other harder. At one point, rookie Jakob Poeltl sent sophomore Norman Powell to the ground hard after a Powell drive.
Casey enjoyed the hard practice.
“I love it. I love guys going at each other in those scrimmages,” he said. “We had a gamelike scrimmage where our out of bounds plays, execution, which is part of the fourth quarter (were included). Whether you are old or young, those are things that we’ve got to do better at and it was good to see the spirit, the competition, because that’s what this is about, competition against the other team and us coming out and being focused for those 48 minutes.”
Lowry explained that many of the changes he needs to see, have to happen late in games.
“In close games we’re like, 5-14? It’s a couple of things that can be changed to help our team,” Lowry said. “Right now, it’s just that everything is magnified to like the 20th degree because of how we’re playing. Things are not going well right now so it just kind of sucks.”
Lowry said he and his teammates are not responding to adversity well. “Right now every single thing we do is just tough on us. Shots are tough, defensively, guys are making shots on us. We’ve just got to find ways to dictate the game a lot better.”
Or as Carroll put it: “If we start winning, this (drama) never happens.”