TORONTO — Saturday morning at Scotiabank Arena, right before his Philadelphia 76ers held a shootaround ahead of that night’s series opener with the Toronto Raptors, Joel Embiid was talking about his pal and fellow Cameroonian Pascal Siakam. They text from time to time. Usually when one of them goes off in a game. Siakam’s had a hell of a year, Embiid said. It’s amazing, surprising. He’s so happy for his friend.
“But we’re not going to be friends in this series,” Embiid continued. “He’s from Douala. I’m from Yaoundé. Obviously, Yaoundé is the better city. It’s the capital of Cameroon. So, I’m going to try to win it for Yaoundé.”
Well, chalk one up for Douala. While Embiid’s the top-10 NBA talent among the two, Siakam’s the one who played like it in Saturday’s 108-95 Raptors victory. On a night when Kawhi Leonard’s name leaps off the stat sheet, his 45 points only two shy of Philadelphia’s top three scorers combined, Siakam’s stands out nearly as stark.
“They were unbelievable — offensively and defensively,” said Kyle Lowry, who was happy to facilitate for the duo, dishing out eight assists. “We’re the type of team where everybody can step up. And those two guys are our options right now. Kawhi was just in the zone. And he probably could’ve had more. But he facilitated some and made some shots. And Pascal could’ve probably had more, too.”
It definitely looked like Siakam was heading in that direction, after the 25-year-old, who averaged 17 points per game over his breakout season, had 17 in the first quarter alone. Combined with Leonard, who also had 17 in the first, a pair of Raptors were outscoring the 76ers by three points after 12 minutes.
Siakam played that entire first quarter and the first two minutes of the second, as well. When he finally checked out at the end of his marathon shift, Siakam had 20 on 8-of-10 shooting.
“I saw what Kawhi was doing. It’s unbelievable,” Siakam said. “We had, early, a lot of pace — trying to play in transition and take whatever the defence gives me. And, obviously, if Kawhi is going off, you know he’s going to get some attention and kind of open up the floor for me, too.”
After his blitzkrieg start, Siakam ceded centre stage to Leonard, who was his sublime self. What could have been an extraordinary, career night for the NBA’s most improved player wasn’t to be. But finishing with 29 points on a hyper-efficient 12-of-15 shooting, with seven rebounds and an assist for good measure, is hardly a garden variety performance. It just speaks to how dramatically Siakam’s heightened his standard of play that a game like that feels almost ordinary.
Then again, Saturday was the fourth time in six playoff games that Siakam’s finished with 20 points or more. This is the time of year when things are meant to be getting more difficult. Which is why it’s so stunning watching Siakam make it look easy. He’s been a top-10 scorer in these playoffs, and is now averaging more points per game than Embiid. Not to mention Russell Westbrook, Nikola Jukic, and, dun-dun-dun, DeMar DeRozan.
When the Raptors traded DeRozan to the San Antonio Spurs for Leonard, they were meant to be swapping out primary scoring options. No one knew another one was about to emerge from within.
“He came out of nowhere,” Leonard said. “I’d seen it in training camp. He had a high skill level, played very hard, passionate about the game. And he just kept working throughout the season. He took those games and approached theme every night with the same mindset. And now you see this.”
It’s just incredible, what Siakam does. His drives are barrelling and right up to the edge of control, yet the ball’s always glued to his hands. His attempts from close range are made at the very apex of his 7-foot-3 wingspan, the ball practically in a different orbit from his body as he softly lets it go. His three-point attempts are funky, sometimes even stiff, but 42 per cent of the time this post-season, he’s watched them drop, often holding the follow-through for a beat, like, ‘I told you I’d hit it.’
Saturday, he simply put it on Tobias Harris. Siakam scored over Harris, through Harris, and behind Harris when he beat him down the floor for one of those trademark motor buckets in transition. At one point during the third quarter, after Siakam scored against Harris on consecutive possessions, the 76ers forward got the ball at the offensive end, jumped in the air under pressure, and came back down with the rock still in his hands, committing a mindless turnover you rarely see in the NBA.
Was that uncommon error the result of carry-over from the defensive end? No one can get in Harris’s head. But getting beat by Siakam over and over again, in such a variety of fashions, had to be tormenting. Look at Harris’s shoulders slump after Siakam hits this third-quarter three right over him:
Siakam’s night didn’t end quite as spectacularly as it began, with a couple fourth-quarter turnovers marring an otherwise stellar box score. But the game was long decided by that point, and when Raptors head coach Nick Nurse emptied his bench with a little more than three minutes remaining, Siakam got to walk off to a standing ovation from a relieved Raptors crowd witnessing only the third Game 1 victory in the franchise’s history.
It’s only one game, of course. The 76ers will spend the next 48 hours devising ways to counter what worked for the Raptors. And, who knows, maybe they can figure out what the rest of the league couldn’t when it comes to stopping Siakam. Their season might depend on it.
“It’s a long series. There’s going to be a lot of changes. Teams are going to make adjustments,” Siakam said. “But I think if we stay within what we do as a team and continue to build on that, we’ll adjust to whatever comes at us.”
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