Toronto’s Lowry piling up minutes at feverish pace

MILWAUKEE • There was a subtle but important shift in Dwane Casey’s minutes allotments over the past few games.

It’s a direct response to the heavy workload point guard Kyle Lowry has been carrying.

Lowry, at 38.5 minutes a night, is playing more than any player other in the NBA. And while you will never hear Lowry complain about too much playing time, even he admits that kind of mileage might not be a good idea.

“I know we look at the long term, so it might be better to get my minutes down, but at the end of the day I’m not going to complain about anything. I want to play,” Lowry said. “If I play 40 minutes, I play 40. I equip my body to go out and play 40 minutes a night.”

Sunday in Sacramento, Calif., Casey got Lowry off the floor with just under three minutes left, subbing him out for Cory Joseph. Two games later in Houston, he got him out with 4:42 left in the first. Similar substitutions took place in the third quarter.

On average, Lowry comes out somewhere around the 10- minute mark at the end of the first and third quarters and then returns for the start of the second and fourth. But lately the call has been coming a little earlier.

“We’re trying to watch his minutes, keep his minutes down and the only way we can do that is to get him out earlier,” Casey said. “The other night (in Houston) was a perfect storm, we had a lead, it wasn’t a nip-and-tuck situation. It’s difficult to get him out of there, but we have to for the long term, for the long haul, to make sure we keep him fresh as the season goes on.”

Two minutes here or there twice a night might not seem like a big deal, but Lowry said it’s significant.

“I think one or two minutes does make a difference,” he said. ❚ THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT: Thanksgiving away from family and friends is a cost of being a professional athlete.

But it doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom and Lowry, who views his teammates as family, wanted to make sure it wasn’t.

Lowry came up with the idea of flying in a chef for a specially prepared Thanksgiving night meal for his teammates and team staff members. And Lowry didn’t just bring in any chef. He got USA Basketball’s Shawn Loving, a certified executive chef, to prepare the meal.

Loving also previously cooked for the Detroit Pistons during their championship run in the early 2000s.