Heat’s Kyle Lowry ready for his return to Toronto: ‘It’s going to be emotional’
With just about one week left in the regular season, it appears that the wait is finally over for Kyle Lowry.
After missing the first three games of the four-game series against the Toronto Raptors because of personal reasons, the veteran point guard is on track to play against his former team for the first time on Sunday (7 p.m., Bally Sports Sun and NBA TV) since joining the Miami Heat last summer. The game will be played at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, a place Lowry called home for nearly a decade.
“I’ve tried to avoid for a long time thinking about it, but it’s right here,” Lowry said before the Heat kicked off its road back-to-back on Saturday night against the Chicago Bulls prior to traveling to Toronto for his homecoming. “I’m looking forward to it, just being able to go to a place I’ve called home for so long and a place I still call home, that has a dear and special place in my heart. It’s going to be emotional.
“I’m sure they’ll cheer me for a while, and then if we start to win, boo me. It’s all love and it’s just being able to show the appreciation I want to and I’m sure they’ll appreciate me for what I’ve been able to do.”
Lowry, who spent the previous nine seasons in Toronto and is considered one of the greatest players in Raptors history, was a key part of the Kawhi Leonard-led Raptors team that won the NBA championship in 2019.
Sunday won’t only represent Lowry’s first game in Toronto since moving to Miami, he said it will also mark his first time spending more than a few hours in Toronto since February 2020. Lowry’s final season with the Raptors in 2020-21 came with the team playing its home games in Tampa because of COVID-19 restrictions in Canada.
“It feels like going home,” said Lowry, who penned a thank-you letter to Toronto that was published Friday by The Players’ Tribune. “I did a lot of things for the city, the organization. The city embraced me, and the organization embraced me, and we created a lifelong bond that will always be there. It’s going to be a great day and I’m looking forward to it.”
The Heat’s first visit to Toronto this season, a 110-106 loss to the Raptors on Feb. 1, came with very limited attendance because of COVID-19 restrictions still in place. Lowry said he wouldn’t have played in that game under those circumstances, even if personal reasons hadn’t kept him out, because that’s not how he envisioned his return.
“I wouldn’t have,” he said. “Honestly, I wouldn’t have played in the game just for the serious fact that I want to be able to play in front of our fans and I want play in front of their fans.”
But those restrictions have since been lifted and Scotiabank Arena is now operating at its full capacity of about 19,800 fans.
Even with Sunday’s game coming on the second night of a back-to-back for the Heat, a full arena is enough to get Lowry excited for what’s ahead in Toronto.
“I don’t care,” Lowry said with the Heat set to land in Toronto early Sunday morning after playing in Chicago on Saturday night. “Honestly, I’m just happy to be able to be up there, play in front of fans.”
The two players the Heat dealt to the Raptors to acquire Lowry through a sign-and-trade: Goran Dragic and Precious Achiuwa. Dragic played in just five games with the Raptors this season before being traded and eventually joining the Brooklyn Nets, and Achiuwa is still with the Raptors.
While the Heat sits in first place in the Eastern Conference, the Raptors have won five straight and 11 of their last 13 games to enter Saturday in sixth place in the East standings.
“I’m really excited,” Lowry said of the Raptors’ play this season. “I’m happy for those guys, because of the close-knit relationships that I have with those guys, the personal relationships that I’ve built around the organization. Also, it’s a team, a franchise that I helped kind of build back up to a point where it’s a contending team, it’s a playoff-competitive team every year. So I’m happy and I’m just proud to have been a part of it.”
But Lowry is on the other side now, and he knows Raptors coach Nick Nurse will welcome him back to Toronto with a game plan designed to slow him down.
“Let me be real,” he said with a laugh. “Nick is not going to let me have a game, at all. ... Anybody that we played against didn’t have a good game. So I know what I’m expecting.”
‘THRILLED’ FOR HARDAWAY
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra was happy to hear that former Heat point guard Tim Hardaway will be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as member of the 2022 class
“Really thrilled for him,” Spoelstra said. “It has been a long process for him. We’ve talked about how it has made so much sense for him to to be a Hall of Famer. [Golden State’s] TMC, you can’t leave him out. And everything he did for the Heat organization, everything about him has been a Hall of Fame career.
“It took a while. But nonetheless, I know he’s really excited about it, we’re really happy for him and we get to spend another weekend celebrating our family member being able to have such an incredible honor.”
Hardaway, 55, was formally named to the Basketball Hall of Fame’s Class of 2022 on Saturday. He had to wait longer than many expected to be voted in despite being named a finalist on past ballots, but his wait finally ended this year.
“I’ve been through this before for about three or four times,” Hardaway said during an interview with ESPN on Saturday. “I was scared to answer the phone, to tell you the truth. I was shaking because I just didn’t want to hear them say again, ‘You didn’t have enough votes.’ But I answered the phone and he said, ‘I got some really good news for you this time.’ I just started crying.”
This story was originally published April 2, 2022 at 10:13 AM.
