Columnist image

TSN Raptors Reporter

| Archive

INDIANAPOLIS - Kyle Lowry's headband did not make it back to the locker room and could be headed toward early retirement.

The all-star point guard was one of two Toronto players sporting a different look on Monday night when the Raptors - losers of 10 of its previous 12 games - visited the hottest team in the NBA.

"I was almost about to put it on too," DeMar DeRozan said of the red headbands worn by Lowry and Lou Williams, the first time either guard has played with them this season. "But the headband ain't my style. [Lowry's] going to start rocking it until something bad happens, watch."

It's a good thing he's not superstitious, or he may never take it off. Moments after turning in his finest outing of the season, and one of the best of his nine-year career, Lowry tossed the souvenir to a fan above the tunnel in a symbolic gesture as it appears his headband-wearing days are over.

"No, I've got to have something in the pocket," said Lowry, who recorded his seventh career triple-double - 20 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists - in Toronto's 117-98 victory over the Pacers. "So the headband is done, don't worry about that again."

Professional athletes are very much creatures of habit, of routine. A change, any change, can be a nuisance. Lowry and DeRozan both experimented with a sleeve on their shooting arms in a game last month before ditching it at halftime. So, why the headband?

Lowry said he did it for fun, a one-time thing, hoping to change things up. Because, why not?

"Sometimes when things are not going [well], you've got to find something to make it fun again," DeRozan said. "We can't be too uptight, we can't too down. We've still got to have fun with it and I think Lou and Kyle showed that tonight. Just something small likes that goes a long way and carries over in the game."

Whatever it was that sparked Lowry and, by extension, the Raptors did the trick. 

Indiana had a record of 16-31 after getting crushed by Toronto back in late January. They came into Monday's game with a mark of 14-4 ever since, the NBA's best record over that stretch. Like the Pacers teams of old, they were doing it with their defence, ranked third in the league this season, even without the injured Paul George.

On the flip side, the Raptors haven't been able to stop anybody, allowing complacency to get the better of them in the dog days of the season. That resiliency that we had seen from them early in the campaign and throughout most of last year had vanished.

Yet, in a challenging matchup against one of the more physical clubs in the league, they were the aggressors. Lowry and his team hit first and held off every single one of the Pacers' runs, leading wire-to-wire and sweeping the season-series with Indiana.

"We faced adversity," said Dwane Casey. "We faced it and attacked it and that's the mark of a good team. But we've got to continue to do it. One night doesn't make it but I was happy to see our guys get back to playing the way we have to play."

"That's what we have to do to win," Lowry agreed. "We have to get ourselves back going and we've got to keep it going. We have a few games where we play good and we fall off but we've got to keep the consistency of the effort that we played with tonight."

After sitting out to rest the wear and tear on his body earlier this month, Lowry is starting to look like his old self again. He needed just 13 shots to put his stamp on this game after taking 12 in another impressive outing and near triple-double against Miami on Friday. He recorded nine steals combined in those two games and is shooting 49 per cent from three-point range this month after hitting just 24 per cent of his treys in February.

Despite their recent rough patch, it's taken the Raptors 67 games to reach 40 wins on the season, becoming the fastest team in franchise history to hit that plateau, previously 70 games set in 1999-00. They'll need to win at least eight of their remaining 15 games to match, or best, last year's franchise record of 48 victories. Going 10-5, or better, would give them their first ever 50-win season.