It wasn’t a wild celebration — although a water-drenched assistant coach Rex Kalamian might have felt differently — but there was a sense of pride coursing through the Toronto Raptors locker room when the inevitable occurred Sunday night.

Dwane Casey and his staff had just earned the right to coach the LeBron James-led team at next month’s NBA all-star game by virtue of Toronto’s 123-111 pasting of the Los Angeles Lakers, and while it was bound to happen everyone was glad that it had, if for no other reason than the measure of validation it gives Casey, the players, the program.

“That’s what it’s about, it’s for the organization,” said Casey, who seemed to dodge the dousing better than some. “To put a light on our program and see what we’re doing, I think, is the most important thing.”

But there will also be a light on Casey, which the players know will be important. They wanted this for him, long before this year.

“It’s been about three years that we’ve had a chance to do it and we finally did it, so it’s pretty special,” said Lowry, who was behind the private locker room celebration. “For a guy that’s come from where he’s come from, works so hard, and for a team that was supposed to blow it up a couple years ago and now we’re here, and getting a guy in there that works so hard and believes in what we do with a passion? It’s pretty special for us and him.”

The Raptors got Casey the job by playing a rather complete game against a Lakers team that had won four straight and eight of 10 going into Sunday night.

Toronto gave Casey the “force” he demanded at the start of the game and at the end, jumping out to a big first-quarter lead and holding off a fourth-quarter Lakers run.

The Raptors led by as many as 22 points, held Los Angeles to 43 per cent shooting and answered every run with one of their own. Coming off a disappointing effort in a Friday loss to Utah, they wanted to make a statement themselves, if not to anyone else.

Fred VanVleet, who was only so-so against the Jazz, had a career-high 25 points for the Raptors.

“Obviously, you want to get that bad taste, that bad feeling, (and) make it go away,” he said. “I thought we could have played a lot better against Utah. Obviously, we lost that game.

“Give them a lot of credit, but you go home — and you never want to go home with regret, and I thought I went home with a little bit of regret (about) the way I played. Tried to come back and turn it around tonight.”

VanVleet had 13 of his points in the fourth quarter to seal the game, while DeMar DeRozan had 12 of his 19 in the third quarter when Toronto took true control of the game.

DeRozan had been just 3-for-11 in the first half, but made four of seven shots and dished out three assists in 12-minute third-quarter run.

“You just figure it out,” DeRozan said. “The younger me would get discouraged, frustrated, let that dictate the game for me. Nowadays, it’s part of the game.

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“Just because you start a certain way, you don’t have to end that way. You keep that confidence high and stay aggressive and don’t let that make you hesitant to do something else.”

VanVleet, who also had four assists to go along with his 25 points in less than 21 minutes, said it’s important that Casey and his staff get the recognition they’ve earned. Even though Boston leads the Eastern Conference, coaches can’t work the all-star bench two years in a row and now the Raptors are guaranteed to sit second by the Feb. 4 cutoff, locking up the assignment.

“Obviously us players, we get a lot of credit, accolades, pats on the backs,” he said. “For those coaches — some of the best coaching, obviously, I’ve ever had — those guys come in and work every day just like us and they deserve it so much.

“So it’s a good moment for the whole team, for the coaches to get some credit for once. It’s a players’ league, but for them to get that notch is pretty special for our group.”

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