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All-Star or not, Siakam’s progress opens a universe of possibilities for Raptors
When a player is doing everything as well as Pascal Siakam is on a basketball floor these days, it can be hard to distill his game down to one thing or another.
His playmaking, for example, has earned plenty of attention, and justifiably. The 27-year-old came into the NBA as an energizing power-forward after playing two years of mid-major basketball as an under-sized centre.
And yet the Toronto Raptors have been thriving of late in large part because Siakam has become the secondary – and quite often the primary – ball-handler on the team alongside point guard Fred VanVleet.
It’s worked wonderfully. VanVleet is one of the best catch-and-shoot players in the NBA, which is one reason he thrived playing alongside the departed Kyle Lowry on a point guard tandem. But rather than find another option to play point alongside VanVleet – once Goran Dragic and Malachi Flynn were deemed unsuitable – the 6-foot-9 Siakam has stepped into the role.
In his last 26 games Siakam has averaged six assists – not far off VanVleet’s 7.3 per game over the same stretch and 29th in the NBA – fifth among players not considered point guards.
On a team that struggles to rebound – at least defensively – Siakam is putting up the best rebounding rates of his career and averaging a team-best 9.5 a game since Christmas to lead the Raptors.
And of course, he’s been leading the Raptors in scoring with 23.9 points per game over the same stretch.
It’s been a remarkable display only some of the league’s very best can match. The only other players that have season averages comparable to Siakam’s post-Christmas run of 23.9 points, 9.3 rebounds and six assists are defending league MVP Nikola Jokic; two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo and Luka Doncic, who was a pre-season favourite for MVP.
A slow start coming off an injury and below standard regular season a year ago hurt Siakam’s chance’s at being named to the Eastern Conference All-Star team alongside VanVleet, but the way he’s been playing and the way the Raptors have been surging – Toronto is 22-12 since Dec. 1st, the seventh-best mark in the league – he deserves to be on the team.
The Raptors lobbied hard to have Siakam named as an injury replacement for James Harden only to see Jarrett Allen of the Cleveland Cavaliers get the spot – the game is in Cleveland and the seventh-place Raptors trail the third-place Cavs in the standings.
But if another position pops open – the Chicago Bulls Zach Lavine has missed time with swelling on his knee – it would be hard to imagine Siakam doesn’t get it.
“Pascal would be a great addition,” said Raptors head coach Nick Nurse. “Again, I think he’s got hurt, maybe, a little bit in the voting or whatever because of missing a bunch of games to start the season. He’s played phenomenal. He’s played like a superstar here for a number of weeks. Even past the voting deadline and leading into this game, he’s been playing better and better, so I think he’d be a great candidate.”
And if not All-Star? The way Siakam is going he could end up earning all-NBA honours when things are all said and done.
As superstars do Siakam has done something of everything for the Raptors this season. But perhaps the most important element that Siakam brings consistently is the seemingly simple act of making shots in high-traffic areas.
It was the part of his game that deserted him most obviously when he entered the long funk that roughly coincided with the onset of the pandemic in March of 2020 and was apparent even in the early days of this season after he returned from off-season procedure to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder. He had missed all of training camp, pre-season and the first 10 games of the regular season.
But once he got up to speed, he’s been a marvel.
“I just think I went through a lot just physically not feeling my best. It was the bubble [in Orlando after the NBA resumed the 2019-20 season) and all these different things,” Siakam said after he went 16-of-22 from the floor while scoring a season-high 35 points against the Nuggets on Saturday. “The different changes in your body, getting COVID, like different things that happened that shook my body up a bit and then also I had the surgery.”
It’s been on display for weeks now: Siakam attacking the lane of the dribble and either kicking out passes to open shooters when the defence collapses; extending past over-matched individual defenders when the help doesn’t come or simply pulling up and finishing with short-jumpers or floaters when time or situation requires.
Siakam has had a solution for almost any challenge defences have thrown at him. The numbers support the eye test.
Last season Siakam was converting just 59.9 per cent of his chances from inside five feet, but since Dec. 1st – a span of 32 games — he’s been scoring 69.4 per cent of the time. From 5-to-9 feet – typically those tough, heavily contested floaters – he’s shooting 48 per cent, up from 40.7 per cent last year. From 10-to-14 feet – just inside the free-throw line – he is shooting 50 per cent, where he was 42.5 percent in 2020-21.
He’s changed up his shot selection too. He’s taking about three more shots a game in the 5-to-14-foot range, and about one less per game inside five feet, which suggests Siakam is doing a better job of deciding when to attack all the way to the basket and when to pull back from the heaviest traffic and either shoot or pass.
“It’s something I had to go back and just work on the basics every single day, make sure I worked on my body, make sure that I am as fresh as I can be every single day and then just having that focus on both sides of the floor is something that makes it different,” said Siakam. “And yeah, I feel healthy. That’s the most important thing, feeling healthy mentally and physically and I feel like once I have that I can live with whatever I do out there because I know I put the work in.”
It’s a remarkable improvement in a short period of time from the some of the most valuable real estate on the floor. Getting to the paint demands the defence to react, but if a primary ball-handler can’t punish them it’s all just good intentions. The groceries have been bought but dinner doesn’t get made.
When Siakam was at his low ebb during the 2020 playoffs, he couldn’t finish a play to save the Raptors season. He would attack the paint and come up empty. Frustrated, he would step out to the three-point line and misfire from there too, and everything spiralled. His game was falling to pieces. Last season was better, but not at the level he’s been at of late.
“I think … the speed or the tempo or the composure he’s playing with in traffic seems to have slowed down for him or changed in some way,” said Nurse. “I think he’s just really much more patient. [He] doesn’t get himself in a hurry and get himself into too many jams down there. And I think if he does, he’s doing a really good job of getting up in the air and getting it out of those jams.
“So, he’s probably taking a little better shots, for one thing. Second thing is I think he is playing with more physicality. You’ll see him go in there and bump hard and clear some space and go up and score. And then just the other stuff we’ve talked about a ton. I just think he’s in such a physically and mentally better place than he’s been in a long time and continues to play great.”
In a league where making shots is the magic dust that cures most ills, Siakam is making more than ever before. It may not be enough to make him an all-star this season, but his progress has opened a universe of possibilities for the Raptors.
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Panthers’ toughness becomes weakness as Golden Knights capitalize on undisciplined play
LAS VEGAS — The Florida Panthers are trying to be tough. The Vegas Golden Knights actually are.
The Stanley Cup finalists were opposites on Monday, and not because the Knights ventilated Conn Smythe Trophy candidate Sergei Bobrovsky in a decisive (and easy) 7-2 victory that gave Vegas a 2-0 series lead in the National Hockey League championship.
For all the overt and cosmetic displays of “toughness” by the Panthers, who revel in their reputation as shift-disturbers, it’s the steady, unbending Knights who appear through two lopsided wins to have the nerve and fortitude that reflect genuine toughness.
Discipline is toughness. Only one team has it.
The Panthers were so tough they were soft in Game 2. They took two silly penalties early that led to a deficit and displayed little actual resistance around their own net.
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It’s like they thought time and space might somehow repel Nicolas Roy when the Knight walked the puck out of the corner, untouched between retreating Panthers Carter Verhaeghe and Casey Fitzgerald, and beat Bobrovsky to make it 3-0 at 2:59 of the second period.
When Brett Howden skated unchecked on to Mark Stone’s pass and outwaited Bobrovsky to make it 4-0 at 7:10, the goalie who co-piloted the Panthers to the Stanley Cup Final was hooked by Florida coach Paul Maurice after 13 shots.
The team’s other catalyst, Matthew Tkachuk, had more penalty minutes (22) than playing time (15:57) but did deliver the hit of the game late in the second period on Jack Eichel, who like the rest of the Golden Knights, was undeterred.
As the series moves across the continent to South Florida for Game 3 on Thursday, this final is not close. And it’s not going to be close unless the Panthers smarten up because the Golden Knights are too good and too disciplined to just invite them back into the series.
“Toughness, there’s probably a lot of things that go into the description of that,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “It’s not about fighting. To me discipline is more of the mental toughness part of it, knowing that it’s easy to retaliate and get your sort of instant gratification. But to hold it in takes a lot more.
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“If you’re going to play a series and the temperature goes up, it’s just going to be required. I think every guy understands that. You’ve got to decide. That’s on the player and good for our guys, really good for our guys.”
Not so much for the Panthers.
Just 6:39 into the game, Florida winger Ryan Lomberg needlessly brought his stick up on Jonathan Marchessault. And 26 seconds after his cross-checking penalty began, Marchessault scored his ninth goal in nine games by lasering a wrist shot past Bobrovsky’s glove.
A few shifts later, Panther defenceman Brandon Montour took an even dumber penalty by elbowing Marchessault in the back of the head. The Knights didn’t score on that power play (but did soon after) and didn’t get a call when Aaron Ekblad cuffed William Karlsson at the first-period buzzer. Ekblad then ridiculously stuck his skate out towards another opponent on his way off the ice.
That’s not toughness. It’s silly.
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“It’s not a penalty preventing a goal or a scoring chance, right?” Cassidy said of Montour’s penalty. “So you want to take advantage of those. It’s all about creating some doubt, too, for them because they’ve been the story of the playoffs. So you want to put some doubt in their mind.”
Surely, it is there now.
“We’ve seen what they’ve done in the series before,” Roy said. “They play hard, but they also take penalties after the whistle. It was a big goal from Marchy there on the powerplay to make them pay, and we’re not going to retaliate. We’re going to stay disciplined.”
Is discipline part of being tough?
“Absolutely,” defenceman Alec Martinez, a Stanley Cup winner with the Los Angeles Kings, said after scoring the second Vegas goal. “You’ve got to be able to take a few hacks and whacks to be successful.
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“We know the kind of style that they play. They try to get under your skin and we know that we have to stay disciplined. The referees are aware of how they play, too. There’s a fine line between sticking up for yourself and sticking up for your teammates, but then also taking a few shots for the good of the team.”
Each team had four power plays, but Vegas took only one penalty when the game was still winnable for Florida. The Knights were 2-for-4 on the power play, the Panthers 0-for-4.
Marchessault and Howden each scored twice, and 12 Vegas skaters made it on to the score sheet. The Knights have 12 goals in two games from nine different scorers. Their goalie, journeyman Adin Hill, is also badly outplaying Bobrovsky the same way he did Dallas netminder Jake Oettinger in the conference final.
“Every single game it’s going to be different players to step up,” Vegas winger Ivan Barbashev said. “This is probably why we’ve been having success; there’s always somebody else who’s going to step up and score a huge goal.”
“We know we have depth,” Marchessault said. “We know if we roll four lines and get a good forecheck, we’ll get rewarded. And topping that off, I think our discipline has been unbelievable. You know what? They wanted to set the tone with being undisciplined like (they were) in Game 1, and we set the tone back by scoring the first goal there.”
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Barbashev also set a physical tone by rocking Florida wrecking ball Radko Gudas when the game was still scoreless. The Tkachuk-alanche on Eichel was an even bigger hit. But Eichel returned, Gudas did not.
“This is the Stanley Cup Final,” Martinez said. “I mean, there’s going to be big hits, there’s going to be things like that that happen. To see (Jack) bounce back and continue there, I mean it gives the guys a big boost.”
In every department, the Knights have just been too much for the Panthers.
“I think our depth has been a strength all year,” Cassidy said. “It is the biggest reason we are still here, why we beat Winnipeg, Edmonton, Dallas, and why we’re ahead against Florida. I just feel that we have the best team from player one through 20. That’s just how I feel.”
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LAS VEGAS – Unable to change momentum in this lopsided Stanley Cup Final when he has the puck, Matthew Tkachuk decided to make an impact without it.
Hopping off the bench in the second period of an out-of-reach Game 2 and seeing puck carrier Jack Eichel cutting up centre ice with his head down, Tkachuk planted his feet, lowered his shoulder and crunched the Vegas Golden Knights’ top centre so hard and clean, Eichel’s helmet popped off, his right leg buckled, and he rushed painfully to the dressing room.
“It doesn’t matter who you are. You shouldn’t be going through the middle with your head down. You’re gonna get hit,” Tkachuk said, unapologetic. “It’s nothing. It’s not a big deal. He’s a really good player, and really good players can get hit too.”
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Except: It is a big deal.
Because Eichel, surprisingly, returned for the third period and, on his very first post-hit shift went hard on the forecheck and set up linemate Jonathan Marchessault for another goal.
“It’s a physical game. You’re going to get hit sometimes,” Eichel said. “It was definitely a big collision. I got my wits back about me and realized I was fine, and just kind of moved on.”
And because Eichel has kicked off this final with back-to-back two-assist games and now has racked up the third-most points ever by a first-timer to the playoffs (22).
And because the Golden Knights just cruised past Tkachuk’s Florida Panthers in a 7-2 romp, have tripled up their overwhelmed opponent by a total score of 12-4, and the gulf between the sides’ best players is widening by the minute.
Eichel responded to the collision by impacting the scoreboard. Tkachuk responded by taking two 10-minute misconducts, increasing his series PIM total to 36, and potting a meaningless goal in garbage time.
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Let’s be clear: The hit was as clean as it was mean.
Eichel, who toe-picked his way to vulnerability, and Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy didn’t dispute it.
“It’s OK to get hit. This is part of the journey,” Cassidy said. “It hurts to win, and it’s not supposed to be easy. So, good for him.
“Great to see him come back. Not only does it give us juice, but sometimes it can take away juice from the other team if they see a guy come back.”
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Bingo.
The Panthers look juice-less.
They wouldn’t be the first group of men to fly home discombobulated after four nights in Vegas, and they now face the unenviable task of swiping four of five from hockey’s most organized, disciplined and dialed-in team.
We could point to Sam Bennett’s 10-game goal drought or Brandon Montour’s 10-game point drought or Radko Gudas’s questionable status for Game 3 and beyond.
But the two pillars of Florida’s remarkable run to Round 4, Tkachuk and goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, are crumbling.
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Bobrovsky has allowed eight goals on 46 shots through four and a half periods of work, is getting screened by his own defencemen, and got chased so swiftly Monday that coach Paul Maurice said he’d use two days to decide whether to start him in Game 3.
As for Tkachuk, his last great appearance on TNT was on the NBA panel.
He has taken three misconducts, committed a costly giveaway in Game 1, and seems more preoccupied with trying to antagonize Adin Hill and Alex Pietrangelo than imposing his hockey skills on the Knights.
For the record, Tkachuk says he was “surprised” at the misconduct he was handed after the Eichel hit but deserved the second one for whacking Michael Amadio’s stick out of his hand after a stoppage in play.
He then fired a plastic rat a fan had tossed on the ice towards the Knights’ bench.
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The question must be asked: Have Tkachuk and the Panthers lost the plot with their preoccupation with trying to stir up the nonsense?
“I don’t think so. I just think we’re a big, physical team,” Tkachukc said. “That’s how we have played the last second half of the year and been successful. I just don’t think there’s teams that play as physical as we do. So, maybe you guys think that a little bit too much. But at the end of the day, it’s just how we play.
“If we were playing physical and [ahead] in the game, you guys would be like, that’s the recipe for success. So, we’re just sticking with our game.”
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Eichel is sticking with his game, too, which means setting up his wingers, contributing to a suddenly hot Vegas power-play, and breaking up plays in the D-zone.
“I mean, he’s unbelievable right?” Marchessault said.
“It’s not just with the puck. It’s without the puck, the way he works everywhere on the ice. He’s one of those guys that makes everyone look better. He gets a massive hit there, goes into the locker room, first shift back in the third period, he gets on the forecheck, on the body, wins his battle, finds me. I mean, that’s the resiliency we have in that locker room, and it starts with your top guys and goes right through the lineup.”
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Starts with your top guys.
Florida’s top guys are either MIA, off the rails, or threatening to turn into pumpkins.
If they don’t rein in the nonsense and deliver Thursday at home, they too will soon be caught with their heads down at centre ice — in the handshake line.
“We do have to tweak a few things,” Tkachuk admitted.
“They’re halfway there, and hopefully they’re thinking about that a little bit as they’re coming to Florida. I think that could work in our favour. But we definitely have to prepare, give everything in this one game here, and just get a little bit of momentum back.”
Fox’s Fast 5
• That Cassidy trusts his fourth line of William Carrier–Nicolas Roy–Keegan Kolesar to shut down the Nick Cousins–Sam Bennett–Tkachuk line tells you all you need to know about the depth of the Golden Knights.
Wanna talk depth?
“It is the biggest reason we are still here, why we beat Winnipeg, Edmonton, Dallas and why we’re ahead against Florida,” Cassidy said. “I just feel that we have the best team from player 1 through 20.”
• Very cool to see Buffalo captain Kyle Okposo in town to support ex-Sabres Eichel and Sam Reinhart.
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• Speaking of former Sabres, because Radko Gudas got banged up in Game 1, Maurice surprised by dressing an 11-and-7 lineup, inserting seldom-used defenceman Casey Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald’s appearance marked his first in 43 days. He skated just 8:08 in a Round 1 loss to Bruins. That Fitzgerald, who played limited minutes in just 27 games this season, is Florida’s next man up speaks volumes about the contrast in defensive depth between the two teams.
Gudas was taken out of the game — on his 33rd birthday, no less — by a solid reverse hit by Ivan Barbashev. No update was given on his health.
Massive concern.
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• Connor Bedard got jokes.
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• The piping-hot Jonathan Marchessault has 10 goals in his past nine games and might just shoot his way to a Conn Smythe Trophy.
“I have to face his shot every day. It’s unbelievable,” Hill said. “When he gets in tight, he’s probably one of the hardest guys in the league to stop. There’s a reason why he’s scoring.”
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