ORALNDO

Kyle Lowry made his long-anticipated return on Friday and Amir Johnson is not far behind him.

After shootaround on Friday morning, Lowry had said that barring any setbacks in the afternoon, he would return and would also suit up in Miami on Saturday night.

His sore back was fine and Lowry was indeed in the starting lineup against Orlando.

“It feels way better, I think last time I rushed it and this time I took my time and honestly it was still hurting until about a week ago — a couple of days ago — now, it’s starting to feel a little bit better so I’m a little bit more confident, optimistic of what my back can do,” Lowry had said.

Lowry had missed nine of Toronto’s previous 10 games and seven straight after an aborted return.

“He’s not going to come back to the old Kyle, it’s going to take some time, some minutes to get his legs back, to get his conditioning back, but that’s what we’ve got to put him out there to get (ready) for next week,” head coach Dwane Casey said.

The team also doesn’t plan to ask Lowry to change up his game at all. They will let him make the decision, as he always does, about when to shoot and when to pass, sticking to his regular, all-around game, instead of feeding the red-hot DeMar DeRozan or Jonas Valanciunas more often.

While Johnson was held out for the third straight game, the ankle he badly sprained after 16 excellent minutes in Brooklyn, is healing up and he could face the Heat.

Johnson told the Sun he is feeling great and Casey said Johnson went through a full shootaround Friday (though he had a Flintstones-esque sheet of ice wrapped around the ankle following the workout).

“He’s much better. Moving a lot better. He’s going to be back quicker than normal (for a severe ankle sprain),” Casey said.

“It’s going to be important to get him back, to get him some conditioning, get his timing, his rhythm, not only as an individual, but from a team standpoint.”