Late Saturday night, Masai Ujiri got a call. Someone was shooting baskets in front of a sea of empty T-shirts at the Air Canada Centre. Who? Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, all alone. Ujiri drove down, snuck in, watched for a while. It was 11, maybe 11:30 at night. His guys were locked in for Game 7 Sunday, he thought. He hoped so.
24 hours later DeRozan was thinking about that moment as he stepped to the line to seal Toronto’s survival in the first round of the playoffs for the first time in 15 years.