The Raptors have a solution to shooting woes: Practice! Like, until late at night. First it was Kyle Lowry shooting until nearly 1 AM, and now DeMar DeRozan doing the same. From Chris Haynes of Cleveland.com:
While members of the Cleveland Cavaliers spent Sunday night watching Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals at Real Sports Bar and Grill in downtown Toronto, DeMar DeRozan spent his evening inside Air Canada Centre.
DeRozan worked up a sweat, shooting close to a thousand shots for about two and a half hours and didn’t exit the arena until 1 a.m., cleveland.com has learned. The session placed heavy emphasis on scoring assertively and promptly.
Although DeRozan won’t admit it, sources with knowledge of the situation informed cleveland.com that this particular workout happened because he had a feeling LeBron James would be defending him in Monday’s Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals.
When asked about his late-night shooting outing, the two-time All-Star attempted to downplay getting extra work in.
“It’s nothing new for me. You can ask anybody in this organization,” DeRozan told cleveland.com. “There’s not a night that I don’t come back in the gym and try to work on something and get better on something. It’s nothing new.”
Typically, players stay late in the gym to break out of shooting slumps.
“It was just a rhythm thing,” he replied. “Listen, just because you know how to dance doesn’t mean you can’t learn a new move.”
DeRozan’s efforts paid off, as he exploded for 32 points on 14-23 shooting in game four. He and Lowry(35 points) propelled Toronto to a 105-99 win over Cleveland as the Raptors evened the series 2-2.
