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TSN Raptors Reporter

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TORONTO - It didn't take long for one of the Raptors' ugliest losses of the campaign to become a secondary concern.

Throwing a sweater over himself and his bandaged right arm, Kyle Lowry addressed the media after another rough shooting night.

Given how good he's been in this, a career season, it's easy to forget that Lowry is often playing hurt, not injured necessary, but hurt. Nagging ailments, bumps and bruises, that sort of thing - the product of a long season and the unrelenting way in which he plays the game. You don't know about them because, for the most part, he keeps them to himself. He doesn't make excuses, and he tried not to on Monday but, for just a moment, he broke character. Toronto's hard-nosed point guard admitted he was in discomfort.

"It’s definitely something I don't want to play with, and I don't like to play with, but it is what it is" Lowry said of an elbow issue he's been dealing with after his team's 119-100 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder. "At this time of the year you just play through it. It is what it is."

While every player goes through slumps from time to time, Lowry's poor shooting numbers have raised some questions, especially after he was held out of last week's game in Boston to rest a sore elbow on his shooting arm.

As it turns out, Lowry originally hurt the elbow when Toronto faced the Magic in London on Jan. 14, and up until recently it hadn't affected his play in any noticeable way. He shared Eastern Conference Player of the Month honours with teammate DeMar DeRozan in January and was actually even better during February and early in March before taking a hard fall in last Sunday's game, also against Orlando, and tweaking his elbow, prompting the night off against the Celtics.

In three games since, he's shot 11-for-46 (24 per cent) from the field, 5-for-26 (19 per cent) from three-point range and an alarming 13-for-24 (54 per cent) from the free throw line, where he's an 80 per cent career shooter.

"It's a concern and there's a reason for that," Dwane Casey said, later acknowledging the elbow ailment as that reason. "But everybody at this time of year is going through something. There's other things he has to do, get to the rim, kick it out and do those things. He'll be okay."

"It just gets you when you can’t extend your elbow and your arm the complete way," Lowry explained. "Hopefully we’ve got it taken care of. Hopefully I won't be playing and shooting as bad as I’ve been playing the last three games."

The question most will ask, justifiably so, is: why has Lowry logged an average of 35 minutes over those three games and, perhaps, why is he playing at all?

“I don’t think [rest] will help," said Lowry. "That’s why we tried to do the rest and we were precautionary in Boston and it didn’t work. You get hit a couple of times and it flares back up."

Lowry got fluid drained from the elbow after Monday's game, hence the bandage, and is hopeful that with further treatment and an off-day Tuesday he'll be back to his "normal self," as he put it. However, this is where the Raptors have to step in and protect him from himself, where they've got to look out for his best interests, which just so happen to coincide with their own best interests: they need their best player healthy in two weeks.

The alternative is distressing. As bad as Toronto fared in the playoffs last year, as bad as the defence was, as disjointed and one-dimensional as the offence looked, the biggest factor in the team's embarrassing first-round exit was Lowry, who was physically unable to perform at the level he's become accustomed to, the level in which the Raptors need him to be at their best. As the season went on, his body broke down and, come playoff time, the team had no real shot without him. The Wizards limited him to 12.3 points on 32 per cent shooting and the rest is history.

That experience pushed Lowry to get in the best shape of his life over the summer and results have been encouraging. While the point guard began to regress in January of last season, he's shown no signs of dropping off, until now.

Casey and the Raptors have been preaching the importance of rest down the stretch run, exercising caution with recent injuries to Jonas Valanciunas, Patrick Patterson, Terrence Ross and, of course, DeMarre Carroll, who remains without a timetable for return. Now, more than ever, that vigilance will be imperative.

With nine games remaining, Lowry's health is the priority, first and foremost. They are all but locked up as a top-2 seed in the East but, quite frankly, where they finish is irrelevant if Lowry isn't close to full strength. History would more than likely repeat itself regardless of their opponent.

Par for the course, we don't know the extent of Lowry's injury, the severity or the specifics, but the Raptors would be wise to ask themselves two questions: (1) would rest improve it in any way, and (2) could playing risk worsening it at all? If the answer to either of those questions is yes, then the decision they need to make is obvious, even though it might be a tough sell: sit him out, for as long as it takes.