Pascal Siakam has made the fantastical seem ordinary. So few players are capable of doing what he does on an NBA floor, and even better: the incredible feats that Siakam accomplishes on the court are deeply intertwined with winning basketball. The problem? The Raptors continue to lose games where he's unbelievably good.
What does unbelievably good look like for Siakam? He operated as the Raptors central hub for everything good that went on, on the floor. His usage-percentage last night was 36-percent, and he stuffed the stat sheet to the tune of 36 points, 9 rebounds, and 7 assists. The assists in particular, could've sky-rocketed had the Raptors been able to hit a respectable number of their three-point looks, but as has been the case lately - they didn't.
The rhythm of the offense was so off-kilter and out of sorts that Siakam himself put up 9 threes (only hitting 2) in an attempt to keep the Orlando defense from packing the paint further than they already had been. Simply put, the Raptors can't survive when Siakam is the best 3-point shooter in their starting lineup. Not only is it untenable, it is nonsensical for players like O.G. Anunoby and Fred VanVleet -- proven shooters, the both of them - with over 1300 and 2200 3-point attempts under their belts in their careers, to be in this sort of a funk.
"We got a couple guys that aren't ready to go on the defensive end, on the road. We've talked to 'em about it. We tell 'em." Coach Nurse said of the Raptors poor starts to games. "Most teams are different at home than they are on the road. We talked to them the other night about how well they played against the Clippers. We talked to them about how they have a lot more speed, and energy, and pace. And they're gonna try and play in the open floor a lot more and stuff, but we just weren't ready to match it. And that's disappointing. It's something we're gonna have to look at and dissect here pretty closely. We need to do something different on the road."
Not only was Siakam asked to fill an unfamiliar role as a spot-up shooter, but he was still asked to initiate the majority of the offense and run his usual gauntlet on defense. That gauntlet of course includes problem solving constantly with his rotations, for all the missed rotations that the Raptors hemorrhaged; weak-side rotations to stop drives, and meaningful point of attack defense on the opposing teams offensive star for the night, Franz Wagner. Until the last 15-16 minutes of the game, Siakam was living a very lonely defensive life.
