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TSN Raptors Reporter

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TORONTO - The closed-door pep talk Dwane Casey delivers to his players and subsequent meeting with his coaching staff after each game lasted almost twice as long as usual, following Thursday's disheartening defeat, the team's fourth in a row.

The content of those discussions will remain in-house, the Raptors' coach insisted when he finally resurfaced, but it wasn't hard to gauge the general theme from the tone in his voice and the feeling of frustration that radiated throughout Toronto's locker room.

It was written all over Kyle Lowry's face as he answered questions about the team's effort - or lack thereof - in this latest loss, reluctantly.

Provide an explanation for the lack of intensity that his coach had referenced moments earlier, he was asked.

"No, I can not," he replied after an uncomfortable pause.

Why might have Casey referred to said lack of intensity, he was asked, again?

"I don't know."

"Tonight we sucked as a team," Lowry said, providing a fair and more thorough explanation of the evening's events. "We've got to figure it out soon."

"Just frustration, disappointment, anger," said Patrick Patterson, offering a description of the mood in the room following Toronto's 103-95 loss to Charlotte. "Everyone's just frustrated with the way we're playing right now. It's not like we're not trying. That's the thing. It's not like we're giving up. As you see, no matter what the score is we're going to continue to battle and play hard but it just seems like things just aren't working for us. It seems like we're in a hole and we're trying to climb out right now. Hopefully we climb out sooner rather than later."

Mired in their longest losing skid since December of 2013, dating back to the road trip that preceded last season's Rudy Gay trade, these Raptors find themselves in uncharted territory. 

"The frustration is just all with us losing against teams that we feel like we should [beat], being in situations that we feel like we should come out on top of and just not having that overall effort as a team out there. That's where the frustration lies, with our effort, with our lack of will."

Their famously harmonious locker room, generally filled with cheerful players and lighthearted chatter between stalls, was almost completely silent. Adversity has hit, as they knew it eventually would. They had been weathering it for a few weeks now.

First DeMar DeRozan went down, but they continued to win despite the absence of their All-Star. Then they set out on a lengthy, character-testing road trip, but held their own, at least initially. Somewhere, seemingly in the midst of a mentally and physically draining overtime loss to Portland before the New Year, it all began to wear on them: The loss of DeRozan, the unforgiving nature of the schedule. For the first time this season, they're truly being challenged in a way that could ultimately make or break them, depending on how they react.

The difficulty is, there's no simple cause of, or solution to their sudden slide.

"One of the silver linings about this situation is that DeMar is not out there," said Patterson. "So maybe DeMar is the cure to all this. Who knows? But at the end of the day, with the team that we have, with the players that we have, with the mentality and attitude that we have, from the organization up top - coaching staff and players - this isn't normal for us. Since the trade we haven't been in this situation. So, luckily we have great leaders on this team with Kyle and DeMar and luckily we have a great coaching staff so hopefully things turn around."

Although the Hornets have been playing improved basketball of late - winners of four in a row - they're nowhere near the level of competition Toronto had faced in its previous three losses to Portland, Golden State and Phoenix. Coming off a pair of spirited practices, facing a Charlotte team in the second night of its back-to-back and playing their first game at the Air Canada Centre in two and a half weeks, Thursday's loss stung more than the others. Needless to say, their long awaited return home didn't exactly go as planned.

Lacking energy early in the game, the Raptors got off to a slow start on both ends of the floor and never recovered. Shooting under 40 per cent from the field, the Raptors also surrendered over 100 points for the eighth time in nine games.

"It’s been the last couple of games," Casey said. "I don’t know if it’s the lull of the season, coming back from the west-coast trip. I don’t know what it is. But we’ve got to find seven or eight guys that are interested in competing at a high level." 

The Raptors bench contributed 49 points, more than half of the team's scoring output on the night, while they got next to nothing from three starters - Amir Johnson, Terrence Ross and Landry Fields. Meanwhile, Lowry and Lou Williams combined to shoot 11-for-37.

With DeRozan's return pushed back until sometime next week, Casey hinted at a possible lineup change that could shake up the rotation ahead of Saturday's game at home to Boston.

"I thought the second unit came in and competed," he said. "For whatever reason, we’re not getting that energy at the start of the game, the start of the third quarter. Those were backbreakers. Whether it’s a lineup change or whatever it is, we’ve got to find an answer for it."

Fields, who played under 10 minutes without attempting a shot or scoring a point in another spot start, would seem like the odd man out in Casey's current first unit. James Johnson was one of few standouts in 23 minutes of action on Thursday and could fill the void until DeRozan is able to reclaim his spot in the lineup.

LOWRY MAKES LATE ALL-STAR PUSH

Casey has certainly not been shy in support of his point guard's All-Star campaign. In fact, that's probably an understatement.

"Kyle [Lowry] should make the All-Star team," reiterated a vocal Casey following the team's practice on Wednesday. "Again, I love our fans and if they were that gracious [they'd] get out and vote, or get on the computer and vote, or however they vote... I don't even know how they do it." 

"And again," he continued, "I'm going to be really upset at our coaches if they don't vote him in. If the fans don't vote him in and the coaches don't vote him in, we have an issue. Because if Kyle Lowry and Jimmy Butler, there's two guys, are not All-Stars, there's something wrong with our system."

Although Lowry remains something of a long shot to start in next month's annual NBA All-Star Game, Casey would be pleased by the progress made in recent fan voting.

In the latest update, released by the NBA Thursday morning, Lowry had jumped Cleveland's Kyrie Irving for third among Eastern Conference guards, but still trails Miami's Dwyane Wade by over 100,000 votes for the second and final starting spot at the position. Wizards' point guard John Wall remains in first as Irving drops to fourth and Butler holds in fifth.

All 10 starters - five in the East and five out West - have remained status quo in the three balloting returns made public by the league since voting opened last month and while a shake-up remains unlikely, Lowry's backing has reached new heights this past week.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper reached out to Canadian basketball fans via Twitter to make an All-Star plea on behalf of Lowry. The two tweets he sent out and their subsequent retweets - amounting to over 6,000 as of Thursday afternoon - all count as votes for the Raptors' star point guard. Toronto Mayor John Tory followed suit a day later.

Fans have until Jan. 19 to submit their votes for the game's starters online and through social media (including Twitter) before the league's coaches fill out the rosters. Starters will be announced on Jan. 22, with the reserves to follow on Jan. 29.

"I've been with a lot of great point guards," Casey added. "[Jason Kidd] in Dallas and Gary Payton in Seattle [and] Kyle has a style of play a lot like those guys, he has an effect on the game like those guys [did]. He is an All-Star and I'll tell anyone who asks that question."

RAPS ON ESPN

With the last-place Knicks mired in a 14-game losing skid, showing no signs of letting up anytime soon, ESPN announced that they have dropped a pair of contests featuring New York - including a match-up against rival Brooklyn - to pick up a couple of Raptors home games.

Toronto's Feb. 6 meeting with the Clippers and its Mar. 25 tilt against the Bulls will now air nationally in the United States. The start time changes from 7:30pm to 7pm et for both contests to accommodate the broadcast.