With Unshakable Resiliency, Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan Can Shock the Cavs

TORONTO — Twenty thousand seats line the Air Canada Centre, but they are empty. The high-definition scoreboard is dark, the speakers silent.

On game nights, the arena is packed and booming, a cauldron of happy chaos and national pride. But sometimes DeMar DeRozan craves the silence.

So last Friday—with his Toronto Raptors trailing 2-0 in the Eastern Conference Finals, their season on the line—DeRozan arranged a late-night shooting session. Just DeRozan, a few friends and an assistant coach in a near-empty arena.

He did the same late Sunday, on the eve of Game 4.

“It eases my mind, more than anything,” DeRozan told B/R on Monday night, after leading Toronto to a second straight victory and a 2-2 tie with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

“When you love to do something, you just want to do it,” DeRozan said. “And you feel more comfortable when you’re in this gym shooting and there’s not 20,000 people here. It kind of makes else easier when it is 20,000 people in here, because they don’t know you was in here the night before, at 1 o’clock in the morning, working on what you love to do.”

It’s possible DeRozan has never loved the job more—or that his dedication has ever been more critical.

His scoring propelled the Raptors to their first conference finals, and has pushed them—improbably—within two wins of the franchise’s first NBA Finals appearance.

The Cavaliers, who host Game 5 on Wednesday, remain the favorites in this series, as fragile as they may now appear. They have the bigger stars, the deeper roster, the more extensive experience.

But it’s no longer crazy to envision a championship series decided north of the border. Or to envision DeRozan and backcourt mate Kyle Lowry leading this paradigm shift, despite their own shaky reputations.

It took the Raptors seven games to dispatch the Indiana Pacers in the first round and another seven to knock out the badly depleted Miami Heat, all while DeRozan and Lowry drifted in and out of focus. There might not be a more confounding pair of All-Stars in the league.

Some nights, the Raptors’ guards are brilliant—combining for 63 points to close out the Heat and 67 points in Game 4 of this series—and some nights they disappear entirely, making everyone wonder how Toronto even made it this far.

DeRozan shot 10-of-37 in the first two games of the postseason and was benched for the fourth quarter of Game 2 against Indiana. He’s broken the 30-point plateau five times in these playoffs—including the last two games against Cleveland—and he’s failed to top double digits in three games.

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