The Toronto Raptors had won, and some of their front-office staff were starting to regain some of the colour in their cheeks, and DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry were up on the podium, the way they almost always are in the playoffs, the usual. They were asked: How important was it to win Game 6 in Milwaukee and get three days off to rest, recover, and prepare for the Cleveland Cavaliers?

DeRozan neared the microphone, then turned to his teammate and friend. “Your back all right?”

Lowry nodded and reassured him, “I’m straight.”

DeRozan turned back and grinned. “It’s going to be critical, then.”

DeRozan knows his pal well enough to know Lowry never complains about his health, so it landed as a joke. Still, Lowry was moving well enough in Game 6 that the stiff back from Game 5 didn’t seem to be a problem. DeRozan had also just poured in a tremendous 32-point game, including being the starting or finishing point of four or five plays that pulled the Raptors out of what was becoming a cavernous collapse. They were up 25 with 5:17 left in the third quarter, and with three minutes left the Bucks had a lead. It was, even for a team whose playoff resumé is as full of blooper reels as it is triumphs, a signature non-accomplishment.

And it was DeRozan who saved them. He had to. Through everything before that — through that 34-7 run where the Raptors lost their minds and the Bucks got more rabid after each successive mistake — Lowry tried at times to stem the tide, but he couldn’t. He got into the lane several times, and when not fouled had trouble finishing over Milwaukee’s length, especially Giannis Antetokounmpo. He committed some strangely passive turnovers. Cory Joseph, who had been getting killed in the series, even had to be reinserted as a second ballhandler.

But for the series Lowry averaged 14.3 points on .426 shooting, including .281 from three-point range. He only took 11.3 shots per game; he never took more than 17. He also averaged 5.2 assists, 3.7 rebounds, 1.8 steals and two turnovers while playing his customarily heavy 38.5 minutes per game. If Milwaukee’s plan was to limit Lowry with the size of rookie Malcolm Brogdon and the length of their space aliens at the back, they more or less did it.

They also outscored the Bucks by 4.7 points per 100 possessions with Lowry on the floor, versus minus-1.2 for DeRozan, minus-2.9 for Serge Ibaka, plus-1.1 for P.J. Tucker, and . . . well, plus-19.5 for Norm Powell, in fewer minutes. Extenuating circumstances, that one.

So Lowry is still indispensable. Now, though, it’s Cleveland, and the job has changed. The Cavaliers have real problems on defence — again, 29th since the all-star break in defensive rating, 22nd on the year — but they can score. The Raptors won’t win many games 92-89.

And for the Raptors to achieve real offensive efficiency, Lowry has to be the catalyst. Remember when he had wrist surgery? Back then, DeRozan said, “when we get out of sync, Kyle, certain things he can do just reverse it.” But against Milwaukee, he didn’t. He didn’t have the speed to turn the corner, or the size to shoot over the defence.

Against Cleveland, those excuses should be null and void, but the 31-year-old all-star has to do it. Toronto’s fourth-rated offence before the all-star break relied not just on Lowry, but on Lowry shooting the ball. Lowry had his great moments against Cleveland last year — his 14-for-20, 35-point Game 4, for instance — but he wasn’t the A-minus player the Raptors needed, night after night. He put the idea of wrist problems to bed in his first game back, in theory, and apparently the wrist hasn’t been hurting him. His back, again, didn’t seem to be a problem against Milwaukee in Game 6.

So now that the six-foot-five Brogdon isn’t around to keep him from launching threes off the dribble, maybe Lowry can deliver something closer to his best self. But what is it? His lifetime playoff field-goal percentage is .388; he has only rarely been the bull-headed, commanding presence he has become in the regular season. Every spring we psychoanalyze Lowry; every spring it’s Kyle, banged up against Brooklyn, broken against Washington, shooting alone after a loss to Miami. Every spring we psychoanalyze him, and every spring, you presume, he tries to figure out himself.

When we talk about the near future of the Toronto Raptors — a team that is objectively at its franchise apex, low bar or not — what we are really talking about is Kyle Lowry. He is a free agent who can command nearly US$200-million from Toronto. If he isn’t re-signed, then there is little point in re-signing the other free agents en masse — Ibaka, Tucker, Patrick Patterson. Kyle is the key.

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The Cavaliers can be had, if Toronto’s coaching delivers the right matchups, and the players play well. That’s really all this series is about. If the Raptors can play well and they lose, fine. If they play like they did while losing that Game 6 lead . . . well, it will be more telling still.

Lowry is not LeBron. He doesn’t need to be. He just needs to be Kyle Lowry, whoever that might be.

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