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TORONTO - With seven seconds remaining, the game all but wrapped up and moments after draining the biggest shot of the night, Kyle Lowry stepped to the line. As he recorded his 23rd and 24th points of the evening, a segment of the sellout Air Canada Centre crowd expressed their appreciation for the Raptors point guard with a smattering of MVP chants. Even Lowry, in the midst of a career and possible All-Star year, laughed it off. "If I win the MVP youll see pigs fly," he joked after leading his team to a bounce-back 94-89 victory over the Timberwolves Friday. Lowry connected on a season-best six three-point shots, none bigger than the one he hit from the corner with just under 15 seconds left to give the Raptors a seven-point lead and put the Wolves comeback hopes to rest. He wont be lifting an MVP trophy anytime soon - though he did ascend to 10th on NBA.coms "Race to the MVP Ladder" this week - but he is well on his way to representing the Raptors in New Orleans for next months All-Star Game. In nine games this month, the eighth-year vet is averaging 17.8 points and 8.0 assists while shooting a remarkable 52 per cent from long range. "Hes playing at a high level," Dwane Casey said. "This is the highest level hes played, the best I think hes played. I dont think hed tell you that." Casey was right, he wouldnt. "I feel good," Lowry responded, asked if hes playing his best basketball, also citing a productive half-season stretch he had with the Rockets in 2011-12. "Hes a tough competitor, plays hard all the time," said Rick Adelman, current Wolves bench boss and Lowrys former coach in Houston. "Hes jumped around to different situations but he was really good for us in Houston and it looks like hes playing that way now." Adelman, who Lowry called his favourite coach, gave the Philadelphia-native his first shot to start and play big minutes in the NBA. In Lowrys final season as a Rocket - with Kevin McHale replacing Adelman on Houstons bench - he appeared to be on the verge of a breakout. He averaged 15.6 points and 7.6 assists prior to the All-Star break and before a mysterious bacterial infection derailed the rest of his season. The Wolves coach said he never had a doubt that Lowry would get back to and even eclipse that level but still, many questioned whether he could be a positive leader at the point guard position. "Hes grown into that role of being a leader, hes matured as a man," Casey said. "Hes doing all the right things and those were the only question marks with Kyle as far as the other coaches are concerned." Lowry credits his personal success to his off-court growth as well as the work he put in during this past offseason. "Im just growing up," the 27-year-old said. "Ive got a son, a wife, a family, its one of those things where you just hit that moment and its just like, youve got to grow up sometime. This summer was a big summer for me. I got a chance to really work as hard as I wanted to and I got a chance to relax my mind and clear it and it seems to be working." With Rudy Gay - his best friend - in Sacramento, Lowry has finally found a balance between utilizing his ability as a scorer and facilitating a productive offence, also excelling on defence and leading the NBA in charges taken (he drew his 24th early in Fridays game). But more than anything else, its his leadership that continues to turn heads, rightfully so. "I didnt do nothing," Lowry said, asked about the teams performance against Kevin Love and Nikola Pekovic, one of the toughest frontcourt duos in the league. "The big fellas did a great job tonight, they redeemed themselves. JV, Amir, Chuck, Patt, those guys played huge tonight and all I can do is treat them to lunch one of these days on the road." Lowry, like the rest of the team, recognized the importance of this game following one of their most disappointing efforts of the season in Boston on Wednesday. "We definitely wanted to redeem ourselves after that Boston game," said Amir Johnson, who added 19 points and held Love to 16 on 7-of-19 shooting. "We made it a goal to get stops, get every rebound and we did that tonight." The Raptors allowed an opponent season-high 19 offensive boards in Boston and appeared to be headed for another long night against the one of the NBAs topped ranked rebounding teams. Minnesota grabbed 10 off the offensive glass in the first half but was held to just two the rest of the way as Johnson and Jonas Valanciunas battled Love and Pekovic, keeping them both in check. "We had a bounce-back as a team from the other night," Casey said. We were disappointed that we were ambushed in Boston." "[It was] just a bounce back game for us and we needed it," Lowry echoed. "Tonight we did a great job of bouncing back against a team thats really good, I mean theyre a talented team, well coached. We did a good job of executing our game plan, they made it close but we pulled it out." Fake Jordan .Y. - Everyone expected Clayton Kershaw to pitch a shutout, and he did — a unanimous choice for the NL Cy Young Award. Fake Nike Shoes . - Tiger Woods only made it through 10 holes Thursday — this time because of the weather, not his back. https://www.fakeshoes.net/. Pospisil, the seventh seed, saved match points in each of the last two sets before falling to the unseeded Dutchman. "I wasnt very happy with the way I was playing,"said Pospisil. Cheap Fake Shoes .com) - The Tampa Bay Buccaneers quickly found themselves a new offensive coordinator, and one thats quite familiar with the NFC South. Fake Yeezy . Louis, MO (SportsNetwork.London, England (SportsNetwork.com) - Reigning two-time champion Novak Djokovic was an easy winner Monday in round-robin action at the season-ending ATP World Tour Finals. The world No. 1 star dismantled eighth-seeded U.S. Open champ Marin Cilic 6-1, 6-1 in a mere 56 minutes at The O2. Djokovic piled up six breaks of serve, compared to only one for the overmatched Cilic. The three-time Tour Finals titlist Djokovic topped Rafael Nadal in last years finale in London. Nadal is not playing this year after undergoing surgery to remove his appendix, which opened the door for Cilic to qualify for this exclusive eight-player event. Djokovic (1-0) heads up this weeks four-player Group A, which also features Stan Wawrinka (1-0), Tomas Berdych (0-1) and Cilic (0-1). The 27-year-old Djokovic is now two wins away from clinching the year-end No. 1 ranking for the third time in four years. Also on Day 2 in London, the third-seeded Australian Open champion Wawrinka flattened the sixth-seeded former Wimbledon runner-up Berdych 6-1, 6-1 in a brisk 58-minute affair. Wawrinka broke his Czech counterpart five times while holding his quality serve throughout on Monday. The world No. 4 Wawrinka haad been stuck in a rut since losing in the U.dddddddddddd. Open quarterfinals, winning only one tour match since, but the Swiss played some of his best tennis of the year on Monday. I didnt expect to win that easy, for sure, said Wawrinka. But I was ready to play well. I had a great week of preparation. Today, the start of the match was really important. That changed it completely. This weeks other four-player group, or Group B, features second-seeded Roger Federer (1-0), fourth-seeded U.S. Open runner-up Kei Nishikori (1-0), fifth- seeded home crowd favorite Andy Murray (0-1), and seventh-seeded Milos Raonic (0-1). Nishikori, Raonic and Cilic are making their Tour Finals debuts this week. On Tuesday, Federer will face Nishikori and Murray will battle Raonic. Federer handled Raonic and Nishikori upset Murray in straight sets on Sunday. Federer, who is making a record 13th consecutive appearance at the Tour Finals and has an outside chance of capturing the year-end top ranking, holds the record for the most titles at this tournament with six. Round-robin action will be staged here through Friday, followed by the semifinals on Saturday and lucrative final on Sunday. ' ' '