Siakam’s formula the same as Raptors’
Long on effort and short on memory is the key for young Toronto star
Pascal Siakam hasn’t been great, but he hasn’t been horrible. The best thing he’s been during these NBA seeding games is even-keeled.
In his exalted role as the Raptors’ closer and first offensive option — a Swiss army knife of shooting, passing and handling double-teams — Siakam’s greatest gift may ultimately turn out to be his mind.
He’s going to take a lot of shots and is therefore going to miss a lot of shots; his ability to soldier on will be his gift to the team. He gets that.
“I think it’s part of my growth as a player: Understanding that some nights you might go 5for-20 but it don’t really matter as long as you have that same energy, play on defence,” the 26-year-old forward said.
“I think that’s the only thing I can really be mad about, not really having the energy that I’m supposed to have. Other than that, I don’t really care about makes and misses, to be honest, because I know that I work hard and always do the right thing and I make the right plays ... Sometimes it’s going to go good, sometimes it’s not going to go good, and as long as I’m doing that I’m content with myself”
Siakam’s play through the first six seeding games — five Raptors wins — has been solid if unspectacular. It is taking him a bit of time to get his shooting rhythm back; he’s only 14for-39 from three-point range and hasn’t scored more than 26 points in a game. But he has learned to let that go.
“You miss some shots, a couple games you lose, and all of a sudden it feels like the end of the world, man,” he said. “We know this. We’ve been here. We’ve been in this position. We’ve got to continue to play. As a team, we understand that. We just have to move forward.”
Siakam is much like the Raptors as a whole and his attitude permeates the roster. Toronto hasn’t been great for the entire seeding season — they were listless in a lopsided loss to Boston, fought through some shooting woes and lethargy early in a win over Memphis. But the players have a short memory, a muchneeded trait among very good teams who know they won’t be very good every night.
“I think we acknowledge the fact that we are not always going to play good, it’s just reality,” Nurse said. “To get too up and down and overreact to things just doesn’t make much sense, right?”
Being able to handle the scrutiny, while also knowing bad games come up every now and then, takes maturity and public patience.
“And it’s not that easy because you people want answers to the questions every night about why something went wrong,” Nurse said of the ever-prying media. “We want to give you those answers and we want to explain them but we also want to say that it just isn’t always going to happen every night in the course of 100 games. It really isn’t. So acknowledging that is a big part of not getting too up or down.
“We really try to do our best each and every day — not on game day but each and every day — to get ourselves right and ready for the next one and that’s really all we can do.”
That attitude has served the Raptors well. They go into Wednesday’s penultimate seeding game against Philadelphia with a 51-19 record and a better regular-season winning percentage than they had with their championship 2018-19 team. It’s sure to help them over the inevitable bumps that will arise when the first round of the playoffs begin next week against the Brooklyn Nets.
“At the end of the day, you lose games,” Siakam said. “I don’t even care by how much we lost, it’s just a loss. Every time we lose, we always have that chip on our shoulder, and we know what to do.
“As a team, everyone is a professional and we understand we can’t have those type of losses. And then the next day, we don’t have to say anything. We just go out there and get it and try to win the next game.”