Kyle Lowry stays after hours to work on shooting

Kyle Lowry was late to the dressing room after Toronto's Game 1 loss to the Miami Heat on Tuesday night as the Raptors all-star put in some extra work in an effort to find his shooting touch.

Several videos surfaced on social media showing Lowry on the Air Canada Centre hardwood after the game practising his shot.

"I don't know where it's at," said Lowry. "It's kind of mind-boggling right now. It's frustrating. But I'm not going to shy away from the criticism or anything. I'm going to continue to be aggressive and shoot shots and take the onus.

"I know I'm not playing well at all. We got out of one series with me not playing well, shooting the ball well. We've got to get out of this next series. I have to play better, shoot the ball better, score the ball better."

How bad was Lowry? Up until the final tick of regulation time Tuesday, he had more fouls (five) than points (four). Lowry was playing like a poster boy for an instructional video on how not to play basketball.

Hail Mary answered

And yet on a night when he couldn't hit a barn door, Lowry amazingly sank a Hail Mary from halfcourt with no time remaining to force overtime.

His redemption shot tied the game at 90-90. Miami star Dwyane Wade crumpled to the ground, his hand to his forehead, while the Air Canada Centre crowd shot to its feet as the moonshot went in.

Jose Bautista's home run against the Texas Rangers in last season's baseball playoffs became known as the Bat Flip. For a few brief minutes, Lowry had the Shot.

"As soon as it left his hand, I think everybody in the building kind of had an idea that would go," said Miami coach Erik Spoelstra.

But Toronto could not take advantage of its second chance, losing 102-96 in OT.

Lowry finished with seven points on 3-of-13 shooting (1-of-7 on three-pointers) with four rebounds, six assists and five fouls. His post-season is going from bad to worse.

He said he's been through slumps like this before. "But not at this time. So that's what's frustrating. Playoffs, all eyes are on you. So it sucks that I'm playing this bad when all eyes are on me. Because I know I'm way better than this."

He has to pick things up, he added, although he used a different word. On the plus side, he is performing better when practising.

"I shoot the ball well when I'm by myself. But I'm by myself."

Big shot 'didn't mean anything'

Lowry made his first basket almost five minutes into the third quarter. The second came midway through the fourth. His first assist took almost 21 minutes to come.

Lowry downplayed his last-second successful shot Tuesday. "It didn't mean anything, we lost the game," he said, still cradling a ball from his post-game gym visit.

He later admitted "it felt good to make it. But us losing the game kind of took a little bit of the dramatics away and the feel-goodness away from it."

At times Lowry looked like a fish out of water on the court. By his own admission, he passed up "a ton of shots" because of his lack of success. And he admitted "a thousand different things" were going on in his mind.

"It's weird," he said. "It's weird."

But teammates and opponents alike said don't count him out yet.

"Kyle Lowry, he can get it going," said Wade. "We have to always be aware of him, he's an all-star player in this league, him and [DeMar] DeRozan all year have been the leaders of this team."

Toronto coach Dwane Casey compared him to a baseball hitter in a slump. "We have to believe in him and we do believe in him. He's going to come out of it."

Time is running out.

Statisticians, meanwhile, troll Lowry and his woeful numbers.

Lowry is averaging 13 points while shooting 30.6 per cent (13 per cent on three-pointers) in these playoffs. In the regular season, those numbers were 21.2, 42.7 and 38.8.

ESPN Stats say his 30.6 is the worst field goal percentage in a single post-season in the last 50 years (on a minimum 100 attempts).

To his credit, Lowry made no excuses. He faced the media, saying he needed to get back to having fun in the gym.

Then he went back to shoot some more.