Toronto Raptors point guard Kyle Lowry went to the locker room with more than two minutes remaining in the first half of his team’s Game 2 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers Thursday night. Interestingly enough, he wasn’t hurt.
Lowry, who had a miserable game shooting, was subbed out with 2:34 left in the first half. The Raptors were trailing by just four at the time, but Lowry had no interest in sticking around to see if they could keep it close. Instead, he walked off to be on his own.
“Just to kind of decompress, get back there, kind of relax my body and relax my mind,” Lowry told reporters of going to the locker room, per Kurt Helin of Pro Basketball Talk. “And knowing that we had a chance to kind of make some things (happen). I wanted to get myself going and get my teammates going and get the team going. It was nothing more than just kind of to decompress, breathe and get back out.
“I’ve done it plenty of times. It’s just now with the magnitude of the situation, it shows a little bit more.”
Lowry was put back into the game with 19 seconds left in the half. By that time, Toronto was trailing by 11. They ended up going into the half down 62-48, and the rest was history.
On a night in which he shot 4-of-14 from the field and 1-of-8 from three-point range, Lowry was unable to help his team on the court. That doesn’t mean he couldn’t have supported his teammates from the bench, but apparently he needed some time to himself at a crucial point in the game.
We know Lowry is an emotional player, as evidenced by what he did earlier this postseason when he was in a shooting slump. Nevertheless, heading to the locker room in a close playoff game when you’re not injured is never a good look.
