TORONTO — The most fun aspect of the Raptors this season hasn’t been Kawhi Leonard strangling opponents to death on both ends of the floor, nor has it been Kyle Lowry doing all the Kyle Lowry Things™ that have made him a legend in the 6, nor has it been the way every single role player has perfectly fit into their myriad of roles en route to the squad turning into the sort of juggernaut that Masai Ujiri envisioned when he traded away perhaps the most beloved player in franchise history over the summer.
With all due, and earned, respect to those things, it’s been the never-ending development of Pascal Siakam into a superstar in the making. The Philadelphia 76ers would probably disagree that this has been fun, but after Tuesday night, there’s no doubt that they agree that the 25-year-old Cameroonian is something special.
Siakam was masterful during Toronto’s Game 5 bludgeoning of Philadelphia, relentlessly attacking on both ends of the floor. Whether it was a collection of drives to the rim in which his physicality proved too much for the Sixers, or his tenacious defense that isn’t Kawhi-esque but can be awfully close, Siakam was the best player on the floor in a 125-89 Game 5 mollywhopping.
“I think I’m getting better, but then I understand that I have to be aggressive,” Siakam said after the game. “I can’t be passive. What makes me dangerous is the fact that I’m aggressive. I play fast. I got to keep that. Sometimes when you have an injury, you tend to think a lot, and want to choose your spots. It kind of like, it takes away from your aggressiveness. I think me tonight, just going out there and being who I am, and not thinking about being injured.”
If you didn’t know any better, you’d have no idea that Siakam was still playing through the calf contusion he suffered during Game 3. The third-year man out of New Mexico State had his fingerprints all over the game, stuffing the stat sheet en route to a 25-point, eight-rebound, three-assist evening that included two steals and a block. Judging a player by their single-game +/- is always a hair risky, but Siakam was a +35 on the night, the best mark any player has put up in a game this series.
Siakam said after the game his calf and hamstring are bothering him, and that while they’re getting better they ultimately need rest that just isn’t going to come any time soon due to the demands of the postseason. Every player deals with various knocks this time of year. Not all of them deal with it nearly as well as Siakam did in Game 5.
His timing could not have been any better. Leonard’s singular magnificence in the series finally hit a bump in the road on Tuesday … well, at least to the extent that a 21-point, 13-rebound evening can be a bump in the road. Every Raptor dug a little deeper in response, whether it was Lowry coming to life and going for 19 points, six rebounds, and five assists; or Danny Green getting scorching hot from deep and canning five triples; or Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka frustrating an obviously ill Joel Embiid into a rough evening on one end of the floor and combining for 21 points and seven rebounds on the other.
“We knew tonight they were going to come out and try to double him,” Ibaka said of Leonard after the game. “So he was just reading the way they was playing on the defensive end and I think he made some great plays moving, passing the ball any time they got two on him. That’s how we had some great offense tonight. And Pascal hit some great shots and then Marc and K-Low, also he was very aggressive tonight.”
There was certainly a more egalitarian effort to get a number of guys involved instead of turning the always-appealing option of “get out of the way, Kawhi is going to do something bonkers now,” and no one benefitted more than Siakam. He had a bum wheel, but it wasn’t sore enough that he found himself unable to do stuff like this, flying past the Philadelphia defense in transition and getting himself a wide open dunk.
SPICY P 🌶️🌶️ https://t.co/J8wfPIhZZk
— Dime (@DimeUPROXX) May 8, 2019
It wasn’t Siakam’s most efficient night by any stretch of the imagination — he was 7-for-19 from the field and 2-for-7 from three. He did thrive at finding contact and getting to the charity stripe, going 9-for-10 from the free throw line and relentlessly attacking Philadelphia from all over the place. In an illustration of how he attacked from all over the place, the five fouls he drew came from five different Sixers: Embiid, Jimmy Butler, James Ennis, J.J. Redick, and Ben Simmons.
This ability to make an impact anywhere on the floor is exactly what makes him so crucial to the Raptors’ efforts on any given night. Toronto coach Nick Nurse noted this after the game, mentioning that Siakam was able to play the three and be a pest on the wing in huge lineups alongside Gasol and Ibaka just as easily as he operated as a small-ball five in others when Embiid was off the floor.
Everywhere you looked during his 34 minutes on the floor, Siakam found a way to make things happen. It was a welcome sight for the Raptors, which needed someone to put forth a Herculean effort with Leonard ever so slightly off. Now, the hope is that Siakam can replicate this performance, but before we get to see if he can accomplish this on Thursday night, he earned a moment to celebrate his big evening. Raptors fans certainly recognized this, too, giving Siakam a thunderous ovation after canning back-to-back threes during the first quarter.
They’re nice moments to celebrate, especially after a less-than-stellar performance during Game 4 in which he just looked a touch off. To Siakam, though, they wouldn’t have amounted to anything if the game turned out any other way.
“You heard it, it was loud, it was as if I hadn’t made a shot in three years,” Siakam said. “It felt good to see one go down. I missed a couple after that, but whatever. It is what it is. We won.
“At this point of the year, I’m not concerned with numbers,” Siakam continued. “Obviously they’re pretty ugly right now. The only one that matters right now is 3-2.”
