BROOKLYN—The project had been proceeding without a hitch. But Operation Keep Kyle Lowry Healthy appeared to suffer a setback late in overtime of Toronto’s 114-113 win over the pesky Nets on Monday night at the Barclays Center.

Lowry, Toronto’s 31-year-old point guard, landed flat on his posterior jostling for an offensive rebound with 1:09 remaining in the extra frame. More than once Lowry, who stayed down for a long moment clutching his backside, attempted to get up. More than once, Lowry buckled over in pain, appearing unable to put weight on his left leg without suffering what looked like considerable discomfort. In the end, the all-star playmaker had to be carried off the floor by teammates Jonas Valanciunas and Lucas Nogueira.

The injury cast concern over an otherwise meaningless game against an inferior team — exactly the kind of contest in which the Raptors have been attempting to limit Lowry’s workload this season.

“I think (the injury is) more of a bruise than anything else,” Toronto coach Dwane Casey said after the game.

Asked what part of Lowry’s body had been injured, Casey replied: “His butt.”

It was hard to know the extent of the hurt. Casey said he wouldn’t speculate, although he did posit why Lowry’s was apparently unable to bear weight on his left leg: “It must have hit a nerve and cramped up on him.”

And if fans needed a reason to believe the injury wasn’t as serious as it was made to look, consider that Lowry sounded boisterous enough after the game. Before he was taken from the locker room in a wheelchair en route to medical imaging, Lowry was overheard shouting to teammates: “X-ray my ass!”

The club later announced Lowry suffered an acute back spasm and will be re-evaluated before Wednesday’s home game against the Heat.

Lowry’s health, of course, is one of Toronto’s linchpins. Its preservation is behind an ongoing plan that had seen Lowry’s minutes cut considerably this season. With his 32nd birthday less than three months away — and with young understudies Delon Wright and Fred VanVleet having emerged as capable options off the bench — the club has made it a priority to slash Lowry’s playing time. It’s one of a handful of sweeping changes meant to make Toronto’s NBAers a more viable playoff property. Which is not to say Lowry, heading into Monday’s game with his scoring down considerably from last season, was fully enjoying the process.

“It sucks. But it’s better for the team,” Lowry was saying after practice in New York on Sunday. “I mean, I want to play. Of course I want to be on the floor and play. But it’s better for me, long term, (to play less) and it’s best for my team. So, for me, as a team player and as a professional, I understand what the endgame is. But yeah, it sucks.”

Lowry played an average of 37.4 minutes a game last year, the second-highest rate in the league behind LeBron James. This year, heading into Monday, Lowry’s per-game floor time was down to 32.7 minutes. That’s a 4.7-minute spread, which might not seem like a lot on any given evening. But multiply it by 82 and you get 385 minutes. Divide that by his current nightly average of 32.7 minutes, and your total is approximately 12. By season’s end, at the current rate, that figures to be something like the equivalent of 12 games’ worth of wear and tear lopped off Lowry’s schedule.

With the season approaching the halfway mark — and with Lowry having played in all 38 games, including his 18-point, 10-assist performance Monday — Lowry said the reduced load has offered a notable boost to the liveliness of his legs. But it hasn’t been an easy transition. And it’s early.

“The body feels great now,” Lowry said Sunday. “But ask me in the playoffs, ask me later in the season . . . I won’t really know the effects until later on in the year.”

On Monday, thanks to a pesky Nets squad that fell behind 13-1 early but fed off a strong performance from third-year guard Spencer Dinwiddie, who had 31 points and eight assists, and battled back to force an extra frame, some heavier-than-average minutes were required. Still, even with overtime Lowry had only logged 38 minutes.

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Monday’s alarming moment aside — and Casey pointed out that Lowry is “a tough kid” who’s absorbed plenty of knocks in his prosperous career — it’s hard to imagine the effects of conservative player deployment won’t help Toronto’s cause. Injuries will happen, but the move has also allowed for the blossoming of Wright and VanVleet, who’ve emerged as key contributors and who’ve been rewarded with more minutes as a result.

DeRozan, who led the Raptors with 35 points on Monday, has seen playing time reduced modestly — by about one minute a game, on average. And as much as it might seem like a footnote, Casey sees moderating the Lowry-DeRozan workload as “a huge deal.”

“I think what people are missing with Kyle is the sacrificing of the number of shots, the number of minutes,” Casey said. “I mean the first few games of the year he’s champing at the bit wanting to get in there. Every star player I have ever had, whether it’s Kevin Garnett or Dirk (Nowitzki), whoever, has talked about, ‘I want to have less minutes.’ But when competition comes and the competitive spirit comes out, they are not thinking about minutes.

“I applaud Kyle and DeMar for their sacrifice. Those two guys have taken less minutes. It’s going to help them in the long run. It’s going to help their career if they want to play more years. And it’s helping us now.”

At least, that was the theory before Monday, when Lowry hit the floor hard and suddenly couldn’t leave the floor under his own power. As optimistic as the club sounded about Lowry’s condition, Monday’s scare was a reminder of the fragility of a franchise when it comes to the health of its all-stars.

As Lowry said on Sunday: “The playoffs will tell everything. It’s all about playoffs for us. That’s all it’s about. This regular season means nothing to me.”

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